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kervinredfire · 3 years

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My Other Fanfics in the Future

Well, I made announcements about my 2 Loonatics fanfics-related stories coming soon. So here are my other fanfics that I am making. But before I am going to show you my other fanfics, I like to share what most of them are like. Kervinverse related. If you checked my Tumblr header it's pretty obvious.

As you may wonder what is the Kervinverse is all about? The Kervinverse is like the multiverse but with all different kinds of Kervin. Inspired by Spiderman Into the Spiderverse all the versions of Kervin contained different personalities, stories, almost the same appearance, fighting styles, and special abilities. One of the most signature outfits is the black and red formal suit.

I already made a folder in toyhouse. However, most of it are unfinished and still ongoing.

https://toyhou.se/Kervin619/characters/folder:812137

People think that those stories a self-insert but it is actually not. Me and my other Kervins are the same but they are different the appearance, abilities, and personalities. An example is Denk Ops’s Chris Danger from the WWE games. And note that this is another long announcement for the other fanfics

So anyway, here are my Kervinverse stories that I would really like to share about Wattpad in the future. So are book covers later

KERVINVERSE STORIES (Including crossovers):

Grand Theft Auto Origins: Kervin Made Liberty – Set in the GTA HD Universe. Before Kervin (GTA Online) came to the place called San Andreas, he was just a very young boy who was born in the place called Liberty with his parents. His father Claude who became rich and retired to a life crime and his wife Misty who used to be a prostitute. It was normal and happy life for him and his parents. But when years passed when he is getting older, he slowly starts to realize what kind of broken world he is living in.

Now for those who played the HD Universe of the GTA Games you know every protagonist in the HD universe like Niko, Johnny, Luis, Michael Franklin, and Trevor. As much as they have different stories and perspectives but this story about GTA OC that he was living with full of offensiveness, disrespectfulness, brutal honesty, and others. An example in GTA IV a radio commercial of Babies Overnight that said that someone was not satisfied with the baby it can be disposed of. Although it would be interesting to have that backstory for my next OC for GTA. So, this story may contain a lot of murder and crimes on what led to him going to San Andreas. So, watch out. And for those who have not played GTA Online why his parents are both Claude and Misty is because it was part of the premium edition for free in Epic Games.

Def Jam X Kung Fu Panda: Book 1 Fight for A New Fight (maybe a working title) - After the events of Def Jam Vendetta, Fight For New York, and The Kung Fu Panda Trilogy including Legends of Awesomeness. Set during Paws of Destiny Season 2 in the Kung Fu Panda universe while in Def Jam 2 years later in the year 2005 after Crow's death (Fight for NY still takes place in 2003) Kervin (Def Jam Fight For NY) the new leader D-Mob's crew but also officially known as the Def Jam Crew after Blaze appointed him to take his place. Kervin has to manage every venue, club, and arenas in New York including places that Crow took over. But in Chinese New Year there was something strange that Kervin and his crew got transported to a different universe. Including former members, fighters, and circuit fighters.

Now, this fanfiction sounded really odd. As you may know why I am making crossover fanfic of Kung Fu Panda X Def Jam? Easy. The first one is because this is what would have been my PS2 games if I ever have a PS2. I was thinking of Mortal Kombat or Yakuza for Def Jam but Kung Fu Panda is the only thing I know when I was 7 years old. The second is because back in the days Hip Hop mixed with Kung Fu was very popular. Although Def jam may be a wrestling game martial arts stole my heart in Def Jam Fight For NY. I heard about things like the Wu-Tang Clan for example but the biggest problem for me is that I am not a true fan of Def Jam because I don’t know about hip hop artists. Just only the games so I will be focusing on their video game counterparts in their fictitious manner meaning pretending real-life characters with their real name are fictional characters. So, if there and fun facts in those real-life counterparts I may add them to it like easter eggs. The third is that there are Kung Fu Panda characters that did not get enough love and mostly art. So many recognizable characters like Po, Tigress, Tai Lung, and many more have become the most recognizable characters in the movies. But what about the tv shows like Legends of Awesomeness and Paws of Destiny? One of my favorite characters of Legends of Awesomeness is Peng, in short, he is the nephew of Tai Lung and he is such an interesting character that he deserves a lot more love. While for Paws of Destiny is Xiao because she is such a cute character, so is her personality and the best character to have hugs with. So, what I am trying to say is that I need to start off with the character that is unrecognizable then bring it recognizably. I may also add characters from shorts like student Mei Ling in the future book and it would be funny and to see rogue Mei Ling. 2 Mei Lings in one. Even Su and Master Snow Leopard because are both female leopards with the same appearance and outfit. I may also include some characters from the flash game Tales of Po and may possibly rewrite them in different stories because I love the character designs thanks to Blue Maxima’s FlashPoint. And the fourth and final part is that to make the Def jam games more recognizable. Def Jam in music is not absolutely enough but video games are. The Def Jam games did not bring a sequel after Fight For NY so I might as well make a sequel with interesting and experimental crossover fanfic just like The Loonatics Road.

The Red Fox (Kingdom Force Spinoff and maybe a working title) - The Kingdom Force has 5 members defending the 5 Kingdoms. Luka the wolf who leads in red, Jabari who runs in yellow, TJ who drills in green, Delilah who swings in orange, and Norvyn who strengthens in blue. Each of the 5 drives Kingdom Riders and turns them into Alpha Mech to fight against evil in the 5 Kingdoms. But even if they save the day multiple times the 5 Kingdoms are still filled with more crime and every antagonist came back doing other crimes and evil deeds because they were not arrested or eliminated. That's is when a red fox came along...

I have seen popular fandoms in cartoons that were supposed to aim at younger kids like Lion Guard, MLP, Paw Patrol, and even Bluey. But Kingdom Force is the cartoon that did get enough love. It's like Power Rangers and Voltron but with anthropomorphic animals like Zootopia. However, the stories and episodes in the show is very confusing and give me almost a lot of questions. But I do like the character designs in the show. My favorite hero is Luka who is a leader with and cute cuddly character personality and my favorite villain Envie Fernadez which she has a pretty hot design, name and voice and so is her personality. Reminds me of Sly Cooper but I have not played the game yet. But for the red fox also OC Kervin (Kindom Force) It’s still at work.

APB Reloaded X Zootopia: Anyone Can Be All You Can’t Be: - In Zootopia “Anyone Can Be Anything” But in San Paro “Be All You Can’t Be” Zootopia is a place where vicious predators and meek prey live in harmony. This means that people in Zootopia live together without the prey getting eaten by predators and predators not getting feared by the prey. They almost eat like us, they sleep like us, they speak like us, they walk like us, they run like us, they bathe like us (well almost), and most importantly they use technology like us. While San Paro maybe has a good look to sightsee but this city has a lot of crime. Robberies, bombings, thefts, drug dealing, murders and causalities, vandalism, and much more that we can think of. But that does not mean there is no justice in this world. When the Criminals like the Blood Roses and the G-Kings try to take over San Paro? The Enforcers Prentiss Tigers and Praetorians from come and save the day. What would happen when a human Enforcer meets a police fox and a police bunny? And how did it happen? Only one way to find out.

Now this one is also a Kervinverse crossover story. It focuses on Kervin (APB Reloaded) meeting Judy and Nick. I am trying to find a way on how will they meet each other. But the only thing ideas I know is that it can be a delivery gone wrong, an invention gone haywire or maybe a criminal stole something magical that is transported to a different universe. But I have a lot of strange things in the game like the Christmas events and Halloween events. I like to see any volunteers who play APB Reloaded. And for those Zootopia fans who have not played APB Reloaded you check it here. https://store.steampowered.com/app/113400/APB_Reloaded/

Well, that is it for the Kervinverse stories. Now it’s time for the other stories that I also planned in the future.

OTHER FANFICS:

Alza Flare (Road Rovers Fan Spinoff)- Alza is a black cat born in the place in New York City, USA. He was born inside a pet shop without cat parents since he was born. His parents' status is unknown. Although he did make friends with other cats and non-cats in the shop. But it was a short while until a human customer named Drayson Flare and adopted him as Alza Flare. Alza has been Drayson's pet for 3 years and they instantly became best friends but when during the time when they are about to go home from the park. A terrible accident happened.

A long time ago I watched Road Rovers on my phone just to try something nostalgic and the show is pretty good though although there are some parts that don’t use their powers all the time. One part that caught my eye is how brutal car accident in the episode “Dawn of The Groomer” which gave me an idea of my new anti-villain OC character named Alza Flare. Sadly, he does have an image of him yet. But I will tell you that I will give you an interesting revenge story for him.

The Best Surfer In The World (Surf’s Up Spinoff. Maybe a working a title and synopsis change) - After the events of Surf's Up and Surf's Up 2: Wavemania. There was once a wolf who lives in the place of Chicago Illinois. He quit his own career due to being a rejected member of Hang 5 for being too unstable and after beating J.C. in a tournament years ago and after his early retirement, he spends his normal life as an ice cream man in his own ice-cream motorcycle with one of his own freshest ingredients and swears to himself that he would never in the waters again. Until he met a young Toyger.

Surf’s Up is my first favorite mockumentaries since I was young. It’s like you are watching animals andromorphic animals absolutely existed in the world we live in. It had an interesting story and writing so are the interesting characters. But when I watched Surf’s Up Wavemania. Well, I honestly love the WWE Superstars and Diva came into the movie but the story did not actually surprise me a lot. Even if the movie has a lot of beautiful locations it still did not surprise me enough because it is more like an adventure than a tournament. That is why I am planning to start my fanfiction in a new different approach with a real story and a real rivalry. Starting with wolf inspired and based on CM Punk during the part when he won the WWE belt against Cena in Money in the Bank when I watched it since intermediate school with a little rename change so it won’t be obvious. And of course, my Toyger OC because he would be trained by his own surfing master. Also, I added a Slam City easter egg

Fire Pro Wrestling World Origins: Story of 2 Angels – There is no synopsis of them yet. But I will tell you they are brother and sister with the last name “Angel” The brother who is a pop artist while the sister who joined a motorcycle club. What they both have in common is they both can fight. Their stories about my 2 new Fire Pro OCs will be coming soon. But they are not part of the fighting roads.

Well, that is all for all the future stories with some summaries that I really want to share coming soon. Thanks for following including Wattpad

For those who are new here follow me on both Tumblr and Wattpad with the orange word link

Feel free to donate to me in PayPal

Also making fanfic is really long to make just like making an announcement. So again. I only post all chapters in 1 book.

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snaill-dragon · 3 years

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Sequel to this post here on world building ideas.

Cast ideas(in this case talking about the last idea for the most part)-

Penny(after the coin, like a lucky Penny)- main protag.

-Kinda ‘clueless’, for lack of a better word, but less in the naive and doesn’t know things but more in the very forgetful and takes her an little bit longer to put two things together.

-in fact she has a tendency to know things others don’t because ghosts tell her stuff.

-shes combat avoidant, not because she doesn’t like it, but because she gets riled up really easily, and doesn’t want to get violent if she can help it (which, when she’s mad, she tends to do.)

-family consists of: unnamed parents I haven’t put much thought into, older brother, and ghost friends.

-Shapeshifter, as in a human who can take one other form (some kind of big cat I’m thinking for her)

Phoebe(bright or radiant)- one of the ghosts that Penny hangs out with.

-kinda crazy/chaotic older sibling energy

-good at reading people, and also pressuring/intimidating them into doing things.

-stayed with Penny because she’d rather be with her then with family.

Cliff- the other main ghost that hangs out with Penny, they choose to call him Cliff because he didn’t remember his real name and they found him by a Cliff.

-plant child of nature, he makes Penny stop and take care of them sometimes.

-very much a sweet boy. Kinda naive, but really nice.

-chatty but not in an annoying way because he’s actually pretty great to listen too.

-amnesia

Sword-Penny’s cat. Yes. I’m giving Penny a cat. Yes she named it Sword.

- siamese kitty.

-just kinda follows them around and sits on things at all the worst moments.

-very LOUD.

-sharp.

Liam(will or guardian)-Pennys brother, a traveler with a tendency for disaster. Wanted in a few different places.

-accidents follow this man like a trail

-he just kinda laughs it off though because he’s managed to avoid consequence so far

-although he laughs it off verbally he actually kinda hates the fact he hasn’t had to face consequences for the problems he’s caused.

-his relationship with Penny is super strained but for the most part they get along.

Calliope(yes named after the Greek muse, means beautiful voice)- a ghost that shows up temporarily as Penny transports her from one spot to another.

-sweet but also kinda sad.

-she died pretty young and is (reasonably) upset about it.

-music/poetry lover(yes, in reference to her name).

Tiffany and Card- other travels Penny knows fairly well.

-Tiffany is boisterous and curious.

-Card is skeptical but very loyal to things they’re certain of.

-they are dating/a couple, became background romance is nice.

—

And that’s about all I have so far.

#implied death #snails writing #character ideas #sequel post #Greek mythology reference

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phlaimeaux · 4 years

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Hello!

I mentioned this on the ISOLATING podcast today.

Here is a six round quiz you can do with your friends/family/frenemies in person or over the internet/WhatApp. The questions are mostly from the amazing Louise O’Connor and I wrote some of the less good ones. Please go on Twitter and say thanks to her. She’s @oconnola.

You can use this quiz but the only rule is that you have make a donation to a charity that is helping vulnerable people at this time. In Ireland, good ones are Alone or Age Action. Please find a similar one in your country/area. And if you could ask the people who are playing with you to do likewise.

It’s one point for a correct answer plus a bonus of two if you can get the link that ties each round together, so the whole quiz is out of 72 points. Sometimes it’s easier to figure out the link and work backwards to get the questions.

The way I did it with my family was to use the main O’Doherty family WhatsApp. There are forty people across three time zones on that. I told them we’d be having a quiz at 8pm Irish time and to form teams and nominate a captain. In the end there were six teams and they could converse with the rest of their team across video platforms. At 8pm I cut and pasted the questions from round one up on the WhatsApp and gave them 10 (more like 15mins really) for the team captains to get the answers back to me directly . Then we moved on to round two. There was a threat of excommunication from the family if anyone cheated.

I corrected them and my Dad did the scores while they were deliberating on the next round and it was one of the most fun nights of the pandemic so far!

Good luck with it and let’s all just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Let me know how it goes.

DO’D

ROUND ONE

1. Brazilian forward and politician Bebeto played for which northern Spanish club for four years in the 1990s?

2. What is the currency of Sweden?

3. Name the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber, and provides most the eye’s focusing power.

4. What is the scientific name for the family of birds that includes jackdaws, rooks, ravens and magpies amongst others?

5. What number appears directly opposite 1 on a standard dartboard?

6. What is the Internet country code top-level domain for Colombia?

7. In anatomy, by what name is the crown on the top of the head also known?

8. Which song on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan features a woman’s name twice?

9. Which brand regrettably launched its hard seltzer line in the USA in early 2020 with the tagline "coming ashore soon"?

10. Who is the lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?

ROUND TWO

1. According to singer Edwin Starr, what is good for absolutely nothing?

2. The Pub Landlord comedy character is played by whom?

3. A rock group, record label or film not belonging or affiliated to a major record or film company is known by what name?

4. ‘______snipe,’ is originally Wall Street slang for ‘streetcorner broker.’

5. Which 2020 Democratic presidential candidate was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana?

6. What was Spike Lee’s film about murderer David Berkowitz?

7. Which international football team played with the letters CCCP on their shirts?

8. What was Lewis Carroll’s sequel to Alice in Wonderland?

9. In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, what is the name of the Imperial troop transporter/combat vehicles that defend the ice planet Hoth?

10. French duo Air had a hit with ‘Kellie Watch ___ _____’ in 1998?

ROUND THREE

1. Ursula Andress appeared as Honey Ryder in which James Bond film?

2. After Romeo and Juliet, which character has the third most lines in the eponymous play? We never actually learn this person’s given name.

3. What 1994 Robert Altman film was shot on location during Paris Fashion Week?

4. Otto Octavius is the real name of which myopic enemy of Spider-Man?

5. Louise Fletcher won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of which character, the antagonist of a character played by Jack Nicholson?

6. An 1886 book by Robert Louis Stevenson investigates the dual lives of which two title characters?

7. What does assassin Leon call his work in the movie ‘Leon’?

8. What genre of song was first published in Tommy Thumb's Song Book, published in the 1740s? Subject material includes the destruction of a major thoroughfare in the English capital, an expedited order of a very special cake, and the threat of a tragic arboreal accident?

9. The term PhD is an abbreviation of which academic title?

10. Jackie, played on TV by Edie Falco, and Betty, played on screen by Renée Zellweger, both share what job in the title of their show and movie respectively?

ROUND 4

1. How are Athos, Porthos and Aramis better known?

2. Which 1991 film stars Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze?

3. How many countries of the world begin with the letter O (in English)?

4. As of 2020, how many times have Manchester City won the premier league?

5. On a typical dart board, which number is directly to the right of the number twenty?

6. How many claws does a rabbit have on its foreleg?

7. In Greek mythology, how many Muses are there? They are the daughters of Zeus.

8. Does a vein carry blood to or from the heart?

9. How many players are typically on a volleyball team?

10. How many countries are permanent members of the UN security council? They are also the only countries with a veto.

ROUND 5

1. What denotes the letter C in the NATO alphabet?

2. What is the surname of the central family in the sitcom Keeping Up Appearances?

3. A 'black light' emits what kind of light?

4. Which Louisiana general led the Confederate troops at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 during the American Civil War?

5. Which rock group sang the 1988 number 2 hit, The Living Years?

6. What was first broadcast on August 1st 1981?

7. Which Roman emperor succeeded Julius Caesar?

8. What five letter word, beginning with G, refers to sloppy or sticky semi-fluid matter?

9. A Plantar wart is most commonly known as what?

10. Which (US) city hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics?

ROUND SIX

1. Which long running BBC music show is hosted by Jools Holland?

2. Which Shakespeare comedy features the characters Benedick and Beatrice?

3. Complete the title of this Duke Ellington song: ‘East St Louis ______ ____’

4. What breed of dog is or was a pet kept by, amongst others, Elvis Presley, Martha Stewart, President Calvin Coolidge and Sigmund Freud?

5. What is the chemical symbol for the element copper?

6. The sitcom Frasier was itself a spin-off of which sitcom? I hope everybody knows its name.

7. Which cereal, marketed in the UK and Ireland by Nestlé, features the cereal in question falling into a bowl with blue, red, yellow and green stripes?

8. Which condiment is made mainly of mayonnaise and finely chopped capers?

9. Constantinople was the capital of which empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453?

10. Which Australian musician’s singles include Chandelier and Cheap Thrills?

ANSWERS

Round ONE

1. Derportivo La Coruna

2. Krona

3. Cornea

4. Corvids or Corvidae

5. 19

6. Co

7. The corona

8. Corrina Corrina

9. Corona

10. Karen O

Theme: Coronavirus

Round TWO

1. War

2. Al Murray

3. Indie

4. Guttersnipe

5. Pete Buttigieg

6. Summer of Sam

7. USSR

8. Through the Looking Glass

9. AT-AT

10. The stars

Theme: Oscar Wilde Quote. ‘We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.’

Round THREE

1. Dr No

2. Nurse

3. Pret a Porter

4. Dr Octopus

5. Nurse Ratched

6. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

7. Cleaner

8. Nursery Rhymes

9. Doctor of Philosopy

10. Nurse

Theme: Heroic front line workers at this time

Round FOUR

1. Three Muskateers

2. Point Break

3. One

4. Four

5. One

6. Five

7. Nine

8. To

9. Six

10. Five

Theme: Pi

ROUND FIVE

1. Charlie

2. Bucket

3. Violet

4. Beauregarde

5. Mike

6. Teavee

7. Augustus

8. Gloop

9. Veruca

10. Salt

Children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Willie Wonka

ROUND SIX

1. Later

2. Much Ado About Nothing

3. Toodle-oo

4. Chow

5. Cu

6. Cheers

7. Cheerios

8. Tartar

9. Byzantine

10. Sia

Theme: Ways of saying goodbye.

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curiosity-killed · 4 years

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unmaking

@littlewhitetie this may have gotten even weirder than the first but it is (eventually) (more or less) a fix-it

sequel to too deep a poison

Word count: 3008 Warnings: psychological horror (sort of?), loss of self, betrayal, PTSD, side effects of not having a body for a year???

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You are too hard on him. He dropped the armor in a clattering heap onto his mattress. Black’s tone was mild, nonjudgmental. He still swatted at her presence like he could just brush it aside. The reply was a low rumble of something between amusement and annoyance. Dropping his hands to his hips, Shiro stared down at the pile, lips pursing. She lingered in the back of his mind, unobtrusive but waiting. A surge of irritation rose hot and biter in his chest, and he shoved back a wordless tide of memories. Time worked differently in the astral plane. Chemical reactions slowed to such a crawl that he could see individual electrons passing by, and simultaneously, entire universes bloomed and died in the space between heartbeats. Everything and nothing existed as one, impossible and indivisible. Touch went first, or at least it was the first he noticed. Suspended in nothingness, there was nothing to feel, and so he didn’t notice until, at some point in the eons and milliseconds, he realized he couldn’t call to mind what his armor felt like when eh ran his left hand over the still-gleaming plates. He could tell that it was there but nothing more. Smooth, chipped, cold, or hot — he couldn’t drag forward any memory even to remind him what those words meant beyond a dictionary definition.

He’d burned his hand when he first had the prosthesis and didn’t know anything of how to use it, and the scar still shone a muted pink across his palm. He remembered the pain, surprise, horror — but the sensation itself was absent. It was like watching someone else, on a screen: he sympathized but couldn’t imagine he feeling.

He’d panicked, then, at his first unmaking, but as his other senses slipped away, he stopped noticing. At some point, he couldn’t taste the food he conjured from the ether, whether it was the shitty hot dog that made him and Adam both sick at a local festival or the bubbling champagne they’d served for toasts at the Kerberos send-off. His body flickered away in stages, ashes on an unfelt wind. Hearing and sight remained, sharped as the rest of him fell away. He knew no name or home, but he witnessed everything. There was no sound too soft, no movement too quick. He roamed nebulae, crossed black holes, bathed in the magnetic songs of the stars. The threads of existence unspooled before him, through him. Stardust strands led him across the infinite abyss, named him Witness to entropy and evolution. He was spread thin, diffuse, a spiderweb of sensation. And then Keith stepped into Black. A rubberband jolt snapped him back, an inverse reaction rushing all his backs back across space and time and into his own shape and self again. He gasped on the first breath he’d taken in centuries, and his first word came as a hosanna: “Keith! Keith,” he wept, a hundred thousand sensations returning in an instant. “Keith.” In the cockpit, Keith sat hunched in the pilot seat, hands stretched out tentatively over the grips. They dropped to them like a giving-way, like defeat. “Shiro,” he’d whispered. “Keith!” he’d called, surging forward. “Keith, I’m right here!” The lights flickered, Black rumbling to life as he strained against eh boundary of this plane. She rose as if from slumber, an iridescent flame between rushing stars, and there was a flicker, a lull, before the tide crashed around him. She spoke in no human language, but the roar of her joy formed two words: my Paladin, my Paladin. Keith’s head dipped low, hands tightening over the controls. Frowning, Shiro took a step closer, silent on the metal floor. “Please,” Keith begged, “no.” “Keith—” Shiro started, reaching out, but Keith jerked from the chair and bolted, running through Shiro’s outstretched fingers. He was left staring after, hand still extended and a new cold hollowing a cavity behind his ribs. It was the same every time after. Keith took up the mantle reluctantly, and each time he forced himself into the cockpit, Shiro pushed all his energy into reaching out, into bridging the gap between planes. Black tried, in her own way, but Keith remained closed-off and desperate, and none of Shiro’s calls broke through. Then, they found him. It had almost been an accident. Shiro had been...well, whatever was the closest equivalent to meditating when he had neither body nor breath. He’d pieced together what had happened, or at least thought he had. He remembered the fight with Zarkon, the explosion. Black had supplied him with replays of the moment over and over; looking at her memories, decrypting them, took a different lens and he felt himself shifting, adapting, as he kept watching until it started to make sense. In memory, her quintessence loomed leviathan-like around his, dwarfing even Zarkon and his machine. In the instant after the flash, her sword-edge wings flared wide and then snapped tight around his own. He vanished. By his best guess, she’d absorbed his quintessence somehow in her effort to shield him. His body was either teleported somewhere, thrown off by the supernova of quintessence unleashed, or...dead. The thought didn’t send him reeling like he thought it might. He swallowed, took a deep breath with lungs he knew he didn’t have anymore, and let it be. Even if his body was dead, he was still, impossibly, alive and he wasn’t going to let go without a fight. If his body had been transported somewhere, then maybe they could find it through quintessence. Black took to the form of a lion during these, only not quite. When he reached up to touch her mane, he could convince himself it felt coarse, thick, and she took the general form of a lion as if pulled from his own memory — but that was where the similarities ended. She glimmered like a constellation in motion, a shadow of light through which he could see the swirling stars on her other side, and her eyes burnt purple-white like twin stars. Still she towered over him, goliath. Her wings echoed in her movements, unseen, like water rippling over the cosmos. Time slipped by in nothing-or-everything tumbles, but he’d found himself still instituting some kind of schedule. He didn’t get tired or sleep, but if he stretched himself too thin, worked too hard at their search for too long, he fell away again. It took three times of Black reaching out, catching the unraveling edges of his essence with her teeth and dragging him back, before she started growling at him when he started to push himself too hard. After that, he would rest by leaning against her flank and calling up old memories, a slideshow reminder of who he was and where he came from and what he was fighting for. He was getting close to giving up for now; Black thumped her flail-like feathered tail down beside him as a warning, and he sighed. “Yeah, just…a little longer,” he said. The rumble she gave wasn’t exactly happy, but she settled back. She had the strength to pull him out of this at any point, he knew. He closed his eyes and stretched out again. There — a flicker. He lunged, focusing all his will in that direction. It was faint, fading, but he recognized it, Black recognized it. Hope rushed up on him like a wave, surging up through his chest. It would be hard for the team to see his body if it was lifeless and still like he expected, but if they could recover it, resuscitate it, then maybe — The ship glided into Black’s hangar and Keith leapt from the seat, sprinting down the length of the lion. His hope was a painful thing, such a sudden surge that mirrored the tenuous glitter in Shiro’s own heart. At last, at least, his heartbeat seemed to whisper. The cockpit hinged open, and Keith was up in it in mere strides. He knelt, hands brushing the cheeks, the jawline. Shiro’s name spilled from his lips like pomegranate seeds. Tears ran thin tracks down his face, eyes alight with quivering hope as he scoured the still, blank face. Shiro pulled back. This wasn’t him. This was — that was his face, but this was not him. Couldn’t Keith see it? The hair, too long for a year away; the details of the face, just at a slightly wrong angle. It was as if someone had tried to draw him but with only a single photo for reference. Surely, Keith could see it, surely he would — Keith lifted a limp hand and pressed his lips to the bared knuckles, eyes scrunched tight in painful relief. Horror grew roots in Shiro’s chest, twined between his ribs. If this stranger with his face existed, how many others did, too? What if he was not himself but one of them? How many times had he died? How many times had he woken believing himself narrowly saved when instead he was a simulacrum booting up for the first time? He disappeared, for a while, after that. Black cradled him, let him curl away from the world and into the stillness of nonexistence. She could give him no answer, could only tell him he was her paladin and not whether he was himself. He sat down in the pilot’s seat. Shiro unfurled inch by inch, anger itching red up his spine. How dare he, this fraud this charlatan this puppet — everything had been taken from Shiro and now he thought he was owed this, too. Snarling and vengeful, he slammed shut any connection the clone might try. He could not have Black. He could not have Shiro’s help. He didn’t deserve it.

“Please, people’s lives are at stake. Our friends need us.” He pulled back. The clone didn’t know. He thought — Shiro looked away. Black nudged him gently, just a little pulse. She would follow him, but he knew what she wanted. Sighing, he closed his eyes and breathed in stardust and comet ash, hands curling into fists. Fine. The Black Lion awoke. After that, it became a strange triad: Shiro, serving as the force and energy behind every flight; Black, the wings that allowed them to soar; and the clone, a grounding wire tethering them to the right plane. Throughout it all, Shiro felt his control strengthen, his senses integrate more fully with Black’s until they were nearly one and the same. Their edges blurred, glitched, fused into line. Throughout it all, the clone never noticed. Neither did anyone else. The anger that had awoken at the clone’s first entry smoldered in Shiro’s chest, hurt turned red and cutting. Every time the clone acted out, lashed out or made choices he never would, they all brushed it off as Shiro acting strangely. They made apologies to each other for him but never questioned it, never formed a pattern from the incidents. All of them believed he would do it: cut down Keith, undermine Allura, lash out at Lance. Each betrayal stung, but the worst of all was Keith. He accepted it so readily, so openly and without question. His hands brushed over the clone’s, tender and careful, and when the clone pulled away, Keith accepted that, too. Shiro screamed for him, called out every time he approached Black or skimmed the edge of the astral plane. Keith turned away, and the Blades took him. And then, after. Everyone still walked carefully around him, stole glances out of the corners of their eyes as if he were a wild animal and they didn’t know how he’d react. Irritation boiled over into anger, and he shut himself away. If they doubted him so much, if they were so quick to believe him this feral thing, then so be it. He was sharper now, adamantine and edged. His time in Black’s consciousness had left him with different senses, an altered understanding of experience. He had reforged himself alone in the nothingness. Black nudged him, a push that brought him back to himself. He shot an annoyed look in the direction of the hangar, as if she could see it through all the walls and not just feel his irritation through their bond. If he was too hard on Keith, then fine. It was what they all expected of him now, anyway. The universe needed Voltron to stay together, and he wouldn’t shirk that duty, but the family he thought he’d found, the home they’d made through each other — it had been taken from him, like everything else. A low rumble was all the warning he had before a wave of memories rushed over him, shimmering technicolor like dragonfly wings. The team, weeping for him and struggling to limp forward. Keith, scouring the universe till he was ragged and spent. The lions calling out, reaching for their missing leader, for the hole gaping in Black’s essence. They were Black’s memories, not his, and they shivered and glittered with senses he no longer possessed. They were followed by his own, by memories he hadn’t realized he’d stored.

The gasp, the rush, of being poured gently back into his own body — his body, his self, his his his — and the warm hands pressed carefully to his temples. Keith’s face, the first thing he saw, those wide fearful eyes and the first word out of his mouth like a prayer: Shiro. Hands, the whole team reaching for him, each trying to find a way to help him stand. A thrumming undercurrent in each shaky voice and desperate hug. He looked away, blinked away the images and found tears hot on his cheeks. Sensation was still overwhelming at times, after so long without it, but he found himself craving it all the same. He brushed his hand against fabric he’d felt a hundred thousand times just to feel it again, through water just to enjoy the simultaneous tickle of it on his skin as he watched it roll away. Now, he lifted his fingertips to brush away the tears and found the skin underneath fragile.

They are hurting, too. Yeah, fine. He got the message. Dropping down onto the edge of the mattress, he curled his arm around his belly and gritted his teeth against the gnawing hurt there. He knew, of course. He wasn’t an idiot. It was just… He curled his fingers into his palm till the rubber squeaked against the metal plate. They stopped looking for him. They believed he would turn his back on all of them. They believed he was found. They wanted so badly for it to be him that they would rather be hurt and abandoned than think him still gone. Swallowing, he eased the clench of his fist. That red anger had burnt itself out, leaving behind something ashy and hollowed-out, like a tree struck by lightning. Tired hurt echoed in the space behind his ribs. How is he? Black rebuffed him with a mental snort, the closest thing to an arched eyebrow she could manage. She wasn’t going to make it easy on him. He could feel what she wanted, could sense the hum beneath her thoughts, but she didn’t push him. One way or another, this would be his choice. He exhaled, slow, mindful of the way the air felt cool against his throat, how it whispered into the silent room. Releasing his hands, he brushed away the tears with the heel of his palm and stood. The ship was quiet now, the hallways muted and lit only with the low lights tracking along the floor. His own footsteps barely made a noise, just little hushes of noise against the metal as he followed his own path back. Keith had rolled over while he was gone, twisted the blankets around him till they coiled rope-like around his torso and legs. One hand dug into his pillow, knuckles blanched by the pressure. The other was bound up close to his chest by the blankets. Shiro paused on the threshold before taking a step inside and then another until he finally, carefully, lowered himself to the edge of the bed. Keith’s hair was still damp when he brushed it back from his face, his skin soft against the backs of Shiro’s knuckles. His fever had broken already, his skin no longer hot and slick with sweat. He loosened the blankets just-so, just enough so he could breathe, and Keith gave a little whimper of noise, nestling deeper into the tangle. Reaching over, Shiro lifted his hand finger-by-finger from the fist it had formed around the corner of the pillow. Huffing out some cross between a word and a growl, Keith jerked around to roll onto his other side. He curled inward once more, tight, and his knees pressed into the low of Shiro’s back. His head slid to the edge of the pillow, nestling into his own hand. The hand Shiro had freed dropped to hang over the edge, just shy of Shiro’s knee. “Shiro,” he mumbled, but his eyes were not open and his voice was heavy with dreams. Running his hand through his hair, Shiro smoothed it away from his face and let it trace along Keith’s cheek to pause over the scar curving fang-like over the edge of his jaw. He swallowed, breathed out. He brushed his thumbtip across it once and brought his hand away to fall into his lap. Sitting here, the hollow seemed to ease. It wasn’t contentment that took its place or even hope, but the first brushes of something like a salve pushed back the darkness. Keith’s hands twitched, fingers flexing by Shiro’s knee. Reaching down, he slipped their hands together, palm-to-palm. Keith’s gave a little involuntary twitch before tightening, clamping down around Shiro’s as if grabbing hold of a lifeline. Okay, he thought, closing his own fingers around Keith’s. He closed his eyes, breathed deep. Keith’s heartbeat echoed his own, a sure and steady pulse. They were alive. They were together. They could figure out the rest. “I’m here,” he said aloud.

#sheith #voltron #vld #shiro #takashi shirogane #keith kogane #voltron fic #my writing

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theseerasures · 4 years

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Frozen 2 Reactions, Pass #2

went to see the movie again yesterday, which helped solidify a few more thoughts percolating in the back of my head. i don’t think this one will be QUITE as long as the first, but everything’s going under a cut anyway because i’ve met me

tbh most of this is just me dunking on Elsa

one of the things that i think both helped AND hindered the movie is that they really did make an effort to make the sequel its own separate story from the original--hence the timeskip, the retcons, and so forth. on the positive end of things there’s obviously a much lower barrier of entry for the like...three people who never watched the first movie, and the characters get to feel more grown up while remaining (thanks no doubt to the writing team remaining much the same) consistent enough that the changes to their personalities still make sense. it never feels like it’s retreading old ground, and if fans want to connect the new ideas and themes to the older material (and i count myself among those, what with my first fic in almost four years being about exactly that), there are plenty of kernels with which to do so.

on the other hand: some of the new plot stuff really just DOESN’T work with what’s already been established. chief among those is the idea that ~~~the story of the enchanted forest with requisite creepy lullaby~~~ is a well remembered bedtime story for BOTH Anna and Elsa?? like what does this imply about their childhood? that their parents told them this same bedtime story over and over again, but separately in their own respective rooms? that Elsa got charming bedtime stories about magic-based conflict and war???

(”yeah papa!!! please tell me again about how magic can not only kill people but also SUNDER AN ENTIRE LAND FROM REALITY, that story’s my favorite!!! looking forward to some really spirited nightmares tonight!”)

or are we supposed to assume this is like. the thing bad Batman writers try to do where everything poignant that has ever happened to Bruce happened the night his parents were murdered? that Elsa and Anna remember the story only because it was the night of the Accident (tm)? because that’s...also stupid, i gotta say.

i love that Elsa’s verse in this song start with “the winds are restless” bc it’s exactly the way i imagine her starting conversations with her hapless subjects. “good morning, Your Majesty! how goes the kingdom?” “the winds are restless” “...” “...” “...yes. that was...something i noticed as well”

Local Sisters Make Every Time They See Each Other in Town a God Damn Event

ever since @professorspork pointed out how stupid the “and i promise you the flag of Arendelle will always fly” line is in Some Things Never Change i haven’t been able to stop laughing about it. it’s just such a BLATANT telegraph: “whooo!!! yes! Arendelle!!! we all love that place and want to save it, and you can tell because the song said so!”

the Friends shot of them all walking back to the castle and Anna has kicked her heels off is great though i love it

also love the multitude of shots where it’s Elsa and someone else and we get a peek at her silent reactions to whatever the other person is saying. not since Legolas have we been blessed with so many memeable dumb faces

“ah yes, Mama’s words! cuddle close, scootch in! you remember her saying that all the time right Elsa?? after all it’s not like you have any decade-long baggage about not being able to be near anyone, most especially family members, because you were deathly afraid that you’d instantly murder them”

more thoughts on why Into the Unknown stands out so vividly in my mind: the first movie’s songs by and large did a VERY good job of moving plot around while still exploring character emotion. Do You Want to Build a Snowman moves us through ten YEARS of story, while still leaving space for long, unsung moments where we just get to process what’s going on between the sisters as they grow up. For the First Time in Forever catches us up with the sisters, gets the gates open, and has Anna meet Hans at the end, a pivotal moment for both her and the plot. Love Is an Open Door has them get engaged and sets up the rest of the story. Let It Go is Elsa’s big character shift and sets up the goal for the other characters: the ice palace is where they all need to go to bring back summer. the FtFTiF reprise begins the endgame. the other songs are all more fluff pieces that JUST serve to introduce characters, which is why they’re...not as good, and most people don’t really care about them, but we can accept that they’re there because the strength of the other material.

with Frozen 2...Into the Unknown is pretty much the ONLY song that fits into the first category: Elsa works through her conflicted feelings about wanting to explore the unknown, AND wakes up the spirits (sidebar: her pure joy at using her powers to communicate with the spirits is SO GOOD, guys. it gets me every time). the other ones just kind of transporting their singers into the Emotional Expression Dimension for them to do their thing. sometimes the songs transport them to the next plot point while they’re singing, but nothing really happens DURING them. i can give Some Things Never Change a pass on this because it’s supposed to be about stasis (and because i’ve bitched about it enough on other fronts), but much as i love Lost in the Woods and Next Right Thing for their character exploration they’re really just music videos to get us to the next scene. Next Right Thing is particularly egregious about locking the plot in the boot--the ENTIRE sequence is just Anna climbing or slumping against random rocks until the song ends and she can actually move the story along. one could make an argument that Show Yourself does get stuff done, but it’s still mostly Elsa running around in a cave for three entire minutes before we get to that point

i don’t think Get This Right is perfect but it DOES pull off the multitasking well, and it would have not only resolved the torturously stretched engagement subplot early on but creates a nice thematic echo to Love Is an Open Door: she really knows Kristoff, she really loves him, and she proposes. it’s her choice.

Kristoff’s line about question of how/question of whether works great for highlighting his continued insecurities, but again: either we’re supposed to think he’s wrong and Anna has ALSO been thinking in terms of how and she’s just been too busy in sister-drama-land, and this whole plot should have been resolved early, or we’re supposed to think that Anna really ISN’T on the same page, in which case they...probably should have a serious conversation about where they see their relationship going and not just get engaged at the end because Elsa made a new dress

as soon as an HD version comes out i demand a gifset juxtaposing Anna slumped against a rock with Anna slumped against Elsa’s door at the end of Do You Want to Build a Snowman, because this whole sequence is where the distance between sequel and original really WORKED. Anna is singing about how alone she feels, how she’s never felt such darkness before, when we know that that’s...not true. she's felt pretty close before--not long ago that was her whole LIFE. it’s natural for her to feel this way, because being knocked off your happiness always hurts more than never having it in the first place, but we the audience get to have faith in her, because we remember. eventually she does too, and now she knows exactly how resilient she can be, exactly how strong she’s ALWAYS been.

the animated faces are SO GOOD. we see Anna flicker through seventeen feelings at once when Kristoff rescues her from the dam: delayed fear, relief, and--this is the crucial one for me--horror that she survived, because that means she’s going to have to live with the fact that Elsa didn’t.

Elsa riding into the sunset of her sapphic life is great obviously but every time i see it i worry that the movie is going to end with the same face smear effect as the Prisoner of Azkaban movie

#disney #frozen 2 #helen writes meta

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innuendostudios · 4 years

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Thoughts on Obduction

[no proper spoilers, but the game is best when you go in cold]

Hey y’all I got a new laptop, and, for the first time in... ever, I could afford to make it a pretty good gaming PC. Now, maybe you get your first proper gaming PC and think, “Hell yeah, I’m gonna play that new Star Wars game, I’m gonna play Modern Warfare, let’s take this baby out for a spin!!”

I’m the guy who says, “I can finally play Obduction!”

Obduction marks the professional reunion of Rand and Robyn Miller, the brothers who founded Cyan and created Myst and Riven. Rand wrote and designed it, and Robyn wrote the music and plays the central NPC. Moreover, Obduction serves as a kind of spiritual sequel to the Myst series. I backed it on Kickstarter ages ago, but the Mac build took forever to come out and my computer’s dated specs and the port’s horrendous bugginess made it unplayable. So, naturally, it was the first thing I downloaded on the new machine.

The game’s premise is very “as Myst as you can get while being technically not-Myst.” Instead of stumbling onto a book that transports you to a fantastical world, you are touched by an alien seed that transports you to a fantastical world. Instead of finding more books to more worlds, you find more seeds to more worlds. And, instead of these worlds being constructed by a magical writer, they’re natural, alien landscapes that have been put in contact for unknown reasons. It still all feels very Myst-y, having a central, familiar hub world with a lot of overlapping designs and styles, and mysterious links to stranger worlds with their own rules.

I will say, they seem to be leaning into what makes Cyan Cyan. What if Myst, but instead of the worlds being discrete they overlap? What if Myst, but you take some of the surrounding terrain with you when you link to another world, and something from that world goes back to where you were? What if the membrane separating worlds were a puzzle mechanic? What if linking books were puzzle mechanics? What if where a book is left when you link through were important?

The worldbuilding is also a bit more... anthropological this time, where the Myst series felt architectural. Myst and Riven were very interested in how a world was built, how it fits together, how it was first imagined and then colonized by its writer. And each world was cordoned off from the next, with only select outsiders traveling between them. Obduction’s worlds, by contrast, before coming into contact existed independently of each other, having their own species and cultures. Many of the info dumps are about how these different cultures learned to coexist, how they learned to communicate, the different ways of thinking and types of technology they brought to each other. This narrative focus on complex communities makes the emptiness you find when you arrive more dissonant, but also more haunting. Call it an even trade.

Now, I could talk about design gripes. Rand is a fine designer but I’ve always preferred Robyn’s sensibilities, which took the lead on Riven, aka the best game Cyan ever made if you ask me. There’s nothing as brainmeltingly obtuse as Riven’s fire marble puzzle, but, at the same time, there’s nothing so deeply stitched into the the game’s world and narrative as the fire marble puzzle. Riven also had a lever that very obviously goes up that lets you get stuck for hours and hours if you don’t notice that it unobviously also goes down, and I can now confirm that this kinda thing is a Cyan design staple. (They also repeated their “opening a door closes off a passage you didn’t know was there and you’ll never find it unless you close the door again which you have no reason to do” trick, damn them.) In fact, every time I looked up a hint it was for something that was simple, straightforward, and poorly-clued, the kind of thing you would have spent days not knowing what to do and finally stumbled onto by accident. (This is a roundabout way of bragging that I did all the hard puzzles on my own, by the way.)

It’s also a bit less open this time around. You have to spend a lot of time in Hunrath before you find your way to Kaptar, you have to do a lot in Kaptar before you can get more than a few feet into Maray, and you have to have spent time in all three before you can get to Sorai, so, while there’s technically a stretch of the game where you can be doing puzzles in all four worlds, odds are your experience will be fairly linear. Not sure if that’s a problem, just an observation.

And there’s other stuff. I forgot that Cyan isn’t great with building to any sort of climax. You explore these fascinating worlds, figuring them out, and then, at some point, you realize... oh, I guess I’m in the endgame. You feel a sense of exploration, but not one of narrative tension; outward momentum, not forward momentum. And it’s sometimes unclear what's environmental storytelling and what’s flavor text, so, come the ending, I got answers to things I didn’t realize were questions and found some answers I’d expected weren’t coming. The natural arc of the ending is: cutscene, then credits, then visit the wiki.

But, all that being said... can I just talk about how good it feels to be in a Cyan world again?!?! For all the folks who bit their style, they remain peerless. Nobody builds environments like them. They’re beautiful and enigmatic and drenched in mystery. I spent 14 hours in this game and at least half followed a steady progression of “aha” moments. But not even “aha” moments, more like “what the hell?!??!” moments. The narrative is doled out much better than in Myst or Riven, so every few hours I’d realize the world is more complicated and interesting than I’d previously thought. You see the game with new eyes at regular intervals. Truly remarkable.

Sometimes a game you played at a young age has been in your memory so long it’s hard to remember what it actually felt like when you played it the first time. Spiritual successors are a way of recapturing that feeling, and that’s not always a good thing. Thimbleweed Park, for instance, reminded me how frustrating Monkey Island 2 was. But Obduction does the opposite, in the best way possible: it reminded me how wonderful Myst and Riven were.

I can’t wait to see what Cyan does next.

#capsule review #obduction #adventure games #cyan

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

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Michael in the Mainstream - Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars is a franchise very near and dear to my heart. I’ve grown up watching the films and have fond memories of each of them, in particular Revenge of the Sith, which I got to see in theaters with my father. It’s a series that has introduced me to great characters, great actors, great ways to tell stories, and if nothing else the movies were always fun. I never saw a Star Wars movie I couldn’t enjoy on some level.

That all changed with this movie.

The Rise of Skywalker is a wet fart of a finale. It is a mess, it is underwhelming, it is disrespectful to the previous two films, and worst of all it’s bland. But hyperbole aside, this movie isn’t a complete and utter waste; it’s certainly not the worst film of all time or anything, or even the worst Star Wars movie. It’s just a sad case of a mixed bag where the bag skews more to the bad side than the good side.

Let’s go over what I actually did enjoy first. Obviously, the score was fantastic, but I think this goes without saying; John Williams has never once screwed around, so why would he stop now? His music honestly does a lot of the heavy lifting emotion-wise, as scenes such as the supposed trinity of this trilogy’s reunion at the end would not have any sort of impact otherwise. Then we have stuff like the practical effects, which is both a blessing and a curse as they seem to be a sort of dancing bear for this trilogy. As great and lively as they make the worlds, they shouldn’t be what gets focus over story and character development… but hey, Babu Frik is great.

Speaking of characters, there are a few who were handled very well in this film. In terms of comedy, there is C-3PO and Palpatine. C-3PO is just a genuine riot here, and almost every goofy little joke he cracked gave me a genuine chuckle. He’s really at his best here. Palpatine on the other hand is just a character who is so inherently hilarious that it is physically impossible to be mad at him. Like, he’s an evil zombie wizard who spends half the film insulting Kylo Ren and then the other half cackling and shooting lightning in his big arena full of hooded weirdos while strapped to a big dialysis machine and wearing a sparkling red vest under his robe. Sheev Palpatine is pretty much the greatest character in human history, and while his role in this film is so stupid, shoehorned, and underbaked, you cannot help but crack a grin at the sheer lunacy good ol’ Sheev brings to the table. The sheer revelation that this man actually, canonically had more sex than Kylo Ren is enough to send a man into a fit of giggles.

In terms of actual character, Rey gets a solid arc marred by some incredibly poor writing choices, but overall stays solid throughout. Her interactions with Kylo Ren especially solidify her as an interesting and engaging character, and honestly the whole reveal that she’s a Palpatine is intriguing and could have added depth to her… but they managed to bungle it. And it’s an easy fix too; early on, there’s a scene where she and Kylo are playing tug-of-war with a transporter that is holding an iconic character. Rey accidentally unleashes Palpatine lightning and blows it up, seemingly killing the character inside… only for the character to inexplicably be alive two scenes later. Now, if Rey had actually killed said character by accident and spent the rest of the film struggling with her nature, it would make her ultimate showdown and rejection of Grandpa Sheev’s ideology all the more sweeter and satisfying. A moment at the end would have likewise been improved if she had simply not chosen to rename herself and instead chose to just simply be “Rey,” but gotta have that sweet, sweet branding! Still, I think Rey is remarkably done here, though not nearly as good as she was in The Last Jedi.

But the real MVP here is definitely Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. I’m just gonna say it: this guy carries the film. He has had the most remarkably consistent character arc in this new trilogy, and that concludes just as well here, though sadly in the most obvious way: with a redemption. However, it comes not from Rey, as desperate shippers had hoped, but from his parents – Leia and Han both play a part in ensuring their son’s redemption. And when he’s redeemed, the way Driver is able to convey the character of Ben Solo with just his face and body language is incredible enough to make the redeemed man feel like a totally different character than when he was Kylo Ren, and all of this is without speaking. Driver deserves every ounce of praise he gets for these films, and while I feel his arc would have been far more satisfying if it wasn’t a carbon copy of Anakin’s arc, it’s a testament to Driver’s skill that he managed to sell me such a cliché turn of events and made it work.

This is where my kindness dries up, however, as the rest of this is going to be pretty negative. The story here is just an incoherent mess; it honestly feels like an entire trilogy crammed into one film, a film divorced entirely from the other two films. The big problem with this trilogy is how there is so little cohesion between films that each film feels like a soft reset, and nowhere is that more clear than here. It doesn’t help that this film decides to cram in a bunch of stupid backspaces to everything from The Last Jedi, the most awkward and egregious being how they write off the “Holdo Maneuver” as a one in a million shot at success despite the fact that using the far more obvious “using the rebels as suicide bombers is a bit morally iffy and such a move should not be used unless we’re totally desperate” explanation would have sufficed. It honestly feels like the writers were chickening out a lot of the time and decided to try and distract us from their yellow-bellied attempts at ignoring the previous film by slapping us in the face with tons of fanservice. Sometimes it works – the voices of all the fallen Jedi in the final act was an awesome touch (I hear you Qui-Gon, Windu, and Ahsoka!) - but most of them time it is just painfully on-the-nose and groan worthy, such as when Chewbacca gets his medal. The worst offender here is Lando, who is so carelessly tossed into this mess of a plot that it feels really disrespectful to Billy Dee Williams.

Speaking of screwing over characters though, no one got it worse than Finn, Poe, and Rose. With Rose, it’s frankly just insulting they didn’t even try. It would have been so easy to redeem Rose in the eyes of the fans that didn’t like her character in The Last Jedi; if The Clone Wars can make Jar Jar a likable character, then I’m pretty sure a big budget Hollywood blockbuster can fix the issues of a poorly written character in its sequel. Instead though, this film takes the coward’s route and relegates Rose to a role less important to the plot than Babu Frik, who despite his integral role is only in one single scene. Poe is just handled as nonsensically as ever, given really dumb jokes and a forced and unneeded backstory as a spice smuggler, complete with an implied female love interest in an attempt to try and convince us the character is heterosexual.

But Finn gets it worst of all. Not only does he get a forced implied love interest (who is black, because we can’t have miscegenation in our big blockbuster films!), but he just in general gets shafted so hard. Finn being shafted has been a running theme with this trilogy. The first film set him up to be an integral, important main character, one who would even become the main character…. And then he slowly faded from relevance as the writers put him in increasingly bad plotlines, culminating with the slap in the face this movie gives us by implying but not outright stating that Finn can use the Force. There were so many interesting ways they could take Finn’s arc and they chose the route that is, quite frankly, the absolute worst. The fact that Finn got totally shafted in such a way despite being a fan favorite is all the more baffling and honestly has me wondering what the suits at Disney were thinking. If they weren’t actually minimizing a character as beloved as Finn was after The Force Awakens out of racism, what were they even trying to do? John Boyega has a right to be as angry as he is.

There’s other stuff that’s obnoxious. Leia’s scenes are all terrible and poorly executed, which comes off as really disrespectful to Carrie Fisher; the romance in this film which, as mentioned above, is totally forced, but special mention goes to the Ben/Rey kiss at the end, which while not some life-ending travesty is so utterly out of nowhere due to the lack of romantic chemistry between the two in any of these films that it’s laughable; the editing is so incoherent and terrible in places that it feels like it was done by someone on a mixture of crack and Red Bull; the complete waste that is Hux and his childish reasoning for betraying the First Order, completing the character’s change from a terrifying Nazi allegory to a complete and utter joke; the fact that the new First Order general who takes center stage gets so little development despite being a great throwback to Grand Moff Tarkin and a genuinely amazing character otherwise, with a fascinating history with Palpatine that is never explored and no meaningful interactions with the heroes; the complete and utter unexplained nature of Palpatine’s return; and just how painfully unfunny a lot of the humor in this film is. This movie just has so many problems, so many flaws, and it ends on such a completely limp and unsatisfying note that it’s honestly kind of sad.

This film… I don’t know about this film. It’s definitely not the worst Star Wars film, because it at least has some genuinely good bits to it, unlike Attack of the Clones which I can only really justify liking ironically. But that being said, this film is just so unsatisfying, and what’s more, it’s not very memorable. Not much will stick with you with this one, and if it does, it might be more of the bad things rather than the good ones, which is a shame, because I do think there’s some good stuff buried under the garbage here, but I don’t know if it’s worth sitting through this film to find. This is not the worst thing ever, I really can’t stress that enough… but it’s just not fun, engaging, or anything that will really make you feel anything meaningful, and sometimes that’s just worse.

Ultimately, this film has an incredibly uncertain audience. It’s wrapping up a trilogy in one of the biggest franchises on earth with a plotline that tries to pander to fans in a way that feels gross and condescending, leaving the film feeling like it was made for absolutely no one. If you like this, that’s fine; Star Wars is a franchise that has greatness ingrained in its DNA, to the point where I can’t say any of the films are really among the worst I’ve ever seen. But I think generally this is not going to be a film worth watching, and certainly one to skip in any future marathons of the franchise. It really is a shame… this trilogy if nothing else was full of potential to be a new take on Star Wars for a new generation. Instead, it ended up as a confusing, corporate mess.

#Michael in the Mainstream #review #movie review #Star Wars #The Rise of Skywalker #j.j. abrams #Adam Driver #Daisy Ridley #John Boyega #sheev palpatine #Episode IX #sci-fi #science fiction movie #science fiction #sci-fi movie #Disney

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marginalgloss · 4 years

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a dream of north

I don’t recall exactly when I first read Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. It must have been in the late 1990s, since I’m fairly sure it was after the release of the sequel, but definitely before The Amber Spyglass came out. (I was very excited for that one.) I would guess I was no more than twelve or thirteen. It seems a little odd now to think that initially these were promoted as books for young people. My edition was published by Point, the Scholastic imprint best known for pulpy teen horror fiction; in a bookshop today you are more likely to find a new edition of one of Pullman’s novels dressed up in handsome pastel colours, with a more ‘artisanal’ cover style. Which is fine, and well-deserved. But my copy is the same one I read more than twenty years ago; I know this because it is missing the top-right corner of the last thirty pages or so, having once been lovingly chewed by a late lamented family dog.

Northern Lights is not a long book, and in many ways it feels like a quick sketch of a fast-moving story, one which is touches lightly on the world in which it depicts. By the standards of genre fantasy or science fiction, there isn’t a lot of detail here. We follow Lyra, a young girl growing up in an alternate Oxford — it might be some time in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, by our standards. Through a combination of accident and concealed design, Lyra is drawn into a conspiracy that involves two aspects: an expedition to the distant arctic in search of a mysterious particle called ‘Dust’, and a conspiracy to kidnap children and transport them to this same far northern region. What follows is an adventure in pursuit of Lord Asriel, a man Lyra believes to be her uncle, while alternately monitored and pursued by a sinister rich woman called Mrs Coulter. This race to the frozen North forms pretty much all of the main body of the book.

For the most part it rolls along at a storytelling pace: one thing happens, then the next, then the next. It really does have the rhythm of a story one might tell out loud to children, over many bedtimes. (Consider the frequent asides about what Lyra must eat, and where she sleeps — so often a chapter will end with her curling up to sleep in some sheltered corner of a forsaken place.) It doesn’t come across as overly considered. With a few exceptions, the book doesn’t often slow down to explain itself. If a reader were so inclined I’m sure it would be possible to poke holes all kinds of holes in the plot. Even by the end of the novel I didn’t feel entirely sure what Dust was, nor did I really understand what the antagonists were trying to do with it. Are they trying to destroy it, or to control it? And some of it seems whimsical, in the best possible sense. Want a Texan cowboy with his own gas-powered balloon and a talking bear for a best friend? Why not? It’s fun. It may be whimsical but that isn’t to suggest it’s frivolous; the author’s imagination comes from a place of experience, from deep reading. It’s a world that fascinates, even as it seems to resist scrutiny.

Something else which surprised me on returning to this book was the near absence of any explicit references to organised religion. There are mentions of something called the Magisterium, but it’s far from clear what their role is in the story, while a passing mention of ‘Pope John Calvin’ seems like a sort of gentle joke for older readers. This seems significant because at a certain point after the final book in this series was released, public discussion of Philip Pullman’s work became centred around his attitude to organised religion. By then a new populist atheism was having a kind of resurgence — people were talking about ‘the New Humanism’ or ‘New Atheism’ as if it were something to be excited about. Pullman would be loosely associated with this movement, insofar as his books could be championed by people who might proactively define themselves as atheists.

But to the best of my knowledge, his statements on these matters have been altogether more measured, and less definitive. I’m curious now to revisit the later novels and consider the extent to which they really have much to do with atheism at all. It’s been a while, but it always seemed to me that the atheist reading was worth unpicking from the anti-religious impulse in these novels. There is a certain amount of what you might call ‘fantasy spectacle through hard science’ in Northern Lights — the many-worlds theory, the vague invocations of particle physics, all of which was so excitedly summarised by the New Atheism as the ‘wonder’ of the universe — and yet I’m not sure the novels are altogether so content to settle on a purely materialistic view of reality.

The big idea of Northern Lights is in the daemons. They are a beautiful idea, and the book’s story could easily be read as one long pursuit of this idea. What if every person was born with an animal companion which represented — no, which actually was — an indivisible part of their being? As if we all had another organ of personality, like a second brain or a second ‘heart’, linked to our bodies by an invisible thread. The notion has the genius quality of immediate appeal to all ages. Children (and many adults) love the idea of a permanent animal companion, while older readers may appreciate the associated philosophical concepts: the shadow self, or psychological anima; or just the little angel/devil on our shoulder.

Perhaps the existence of the daemons a kind of heresy, as much as it implies that each person’s soul (for want of a better word) belongs essentially to themselves. There are no refunds, and a daemon is not subject to exchange; a daemon is not the property of some other high power, gifted at birth and reclaimed at death; they might not even be properly said to belong to their ‘owner’, any more than their person-companion belongs to them. Still, in spiritual terms this might be characterised as a problem of accounting rather than of blasphemy. There is a lovely image presented early on of the crypts under one of the Oxford colleges, where great people are buried alongside precious tokens depicting the forms of their daemons. Even in death they belong to one another, though the account into which they have been deposited remains a mystery.

After the reader is introduced to the associated rituals and taboos, it is the pain of separation from one’s daemon that becomes a sort of leitmotif in this book. All this is expressed incredibly well — the sense of separation anxiety is perhaps the most memorable aspect of the whole story. It is unpleasant for one’s daemon to be handled by another person, and it is literal agony to be separated from it by more than a very short distance, and so when the reader discovers that children are being severed from their daemons it seems like an uniquely agonising kind of cruelty.

The allegories for this ‘cut’ are more explicit than I remember. At times it is directly compared to castration or genital mutilation. Lobotomy might be another comparison. The procedure seems to have a uniquely devastating effect on children — it seems that adults have undergone it without such dramatic effects — but as with much in this book, that much is never explained. Again, it’s unclear why the procedure is happening at all. Nobody seems to be gaining anything by it. It is like one of those pointless bleak cruelties we find in Roald Dahl. It’s something to do with Dust, we’re told, and it is dependent on the unique relationship that children have with their daemons before they reach puberty. But that it is hard to rationalise is, I think, part of the point.

Hanging over it all is the horror of institutionalised abuse. It is the kind of abuse that needs no justification, any more than senseless vivisection does. It is merely the pulling apart of a thing to see how it works – for the cutter, the gratuity is its own reward. Perhaps in so far as we can find any meaning in it, it’s in the idea that growing up needn’t involve a sort of deliberate caustic severing of whatever it was that made us childlike in the first place. We may not need to put away childish things, and we certainly don’t need them to be torn from us. Perhaps growing up should be less like a departure from ourselves and more like a process of reification, in which something that was latent all along only becomes settled and manifest with the passing of time.

#books #philip pullman #northern lights

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quicksilversquared · 5 years

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There’s No Camembert in Tibet: Chapter 10

A sequel to Plagg and the Butterfly Costume

With Hawkmoth defeated and school out for the summer, it’s time for Ladybug and Chat Noir plus their newly-assembled team of superheroes to head to Tibet to try to rescue Mrs. Agreste. Hiking, magic, and adventures await them, and hopefully at the end, they’ll be returning to Paris with Mrs. Agreste in tow.

as like normal recently, links will be in the reblog.

The upside to Ladybug and Chat Noir's spectacular wakeboarding across the lake and subsequent accident was that the Rat had found it absolutely hilarious and had lightened up, just a bit. He still wasn't talking much, but he had stopped scowling.

It was an improvement. And he was actually answering some of the questions Mrs. Cheng asked him, which put them all a little bit more at ease. Still, it was hard to shake first impressions, and the teens were all hanging back a little ways from the turtle shell.

"I can't believe that he only lives a day's journey away from where we were," Queen Bee muttered as they skirted around the bottom of a series of tall hills. "Couldn't we have just gone to his town or whatever by bus or car or something instead of hiking all this way? I got blisters, you know."

"We wouldn't know how to find the trail from there," Chat Noir reasonably pointed out. "The instructions didn't cover that. And from what I could make out of what I overheard, he doesn't live in a town. It's a village. It might be really hard to get to."

Queen Bee sniffed and flipped her ponytail. "How hard can it possibly be? You just go down a road until you get there. Maybe we would have to stay in some really small hotels-"

"I don't think that there are hotels out here."

"Fine. We could camp, then. It's not like it would be much different to what we're doing now, only we wouldn't be hiking as much."

Ladybug did her best to ignore Queen Bee's grumbles, knowing that she was just prickly because she was embarrassed about being scared by the Rat before and was fast growing tired of the camping and progressively simpler meals. If she actually thought about what she was saying, then she would realize that Chat Noir was right and stop whining.

"We're almost there!" Master Fu called, and they all breathed a sigh of relief. Dusk was falling fast, and if they didn't reach the Rat's home soon then they would have to figure out sleeping arrangements out of what tents they had along.

"I'm still not comfortable with this," Chat Noir murmured to Ladybug as they made their way up a steep incline to a plateau above. "We're going to be on his home turf."

"We'll keep an eye on him," Ladybug promised. "And I'm sure he won't recognize you- oh, hey, look! Houses!"

All of them promptly dropped to ground level, Queen Bee folding in her wings and Paon twisting his cape in his hands, clearly trying to mask its silhouette in case anyone glanced over. The Rat glanced back at them and beckoned, clearly not worried about anyone seeing them.

That...was not particularly comforting. Not after they had gone to such great trouble to keep people from knowing that a group of Miraculous holders was in the area when they were first starting out. There was no way that they would be able to venture out as themselves if the neighbors had seen that there were superheroes in the area-

-and okay, maybe she was overreacting, just a bit. The houses were very spread out, with stretches of fields and orchards and garden patches between them, and the Rat seemed to be directing Master Fu to the closest of them. Unless the neighbors looked very closely, they probably wouldn't notice anything amiss with the group, if they even happened to glance over and see their group at all.

Still, they wouldn't be able to go out if they stayed for more than a couple hours. Master Fu and her mom and Marinette herself would maybe be able to go out without attracting too much attention, but the others were too obviously out of place. And even then, people would no doubt wonder how they had arrived without notice.

After all, Ladybug had managed to notice from their slightly higher vantage point that the roads crossing through the village didn't exactly look terribly car-friendly. She wouldn't be surprised if the primary mode of transportation for the villagers was more along the lines of horseback, or maybe donkey-back. Or burro-back.

She really wasn't well-versed in what kind of riding animals were likely to be in this area, but perhaps she would learn.

Their group moved past several fields, most filled with tall, grasslike plants. The Rat had hopped out of Master Fu's shell and was leading the way down the path between the fields towards the closest house. It was a little larger than she had expected, really, sprawling out in a one-level rambler style.

Maybe the Rat was part of a large family? That would explain the larger home.

The group moved past the last field and past a pen of chickens, then entered the swept-dirt courtyard. The Rat glanced around, then pushed the door open and entered, waving them in after him.

Ladybug moved closer to Chat Noir as they stepped into the house. It wasn't that it looked creepy or anything- actually, it looked quite nice, if perhaps a bit old and weathered- but now they were actually on someone else's turf. Even though there were seven of them and only the only one other unknown Miraculous holder, Ladybug still didn't like it. There was no way to tell if the Rat had anything hidden up his sleeve, and his history of threatening Adrien's parents didn't exactly make her trust him any more, even with his recently more relaxed attitude.

Out of the seven of them, only Jade Turtle looked relaxed. Clearly he wasn't concerned about the Rat having ulterior motives or carrying out any of the threats that Mr. and Mrs. Agreste had described in the journal. He was looking around the room that the Rat led them through, taking in the decorations and the books piled against the wall. Ladybug was looking around as well, but in more of the style that she used during akuma attacks, looking for potential threats. There wasn't anything obvious, but they couldn't be too careful.

"I hope he doesn't demand that we detransform," Chat Noir whispered to her. "If he actually planned on carrying through on any of his threats and researched my family, he would be able to recognize me."

"I'm sure that Ma- er, Jade Turtle would object to that requirement," Ladybug assured him. "He wouldn't put you in danger like that."

Chat Noir let out a nervous little laugh. "Are you sure we're talking about the same guy? The one that gave two teens magic jewelry to fight supervillains with no prior experience or instruction?"

"And we did well, didn't we?" Ladybug pointed out. "He knows what he's doing."

Even with the reassurance, she could still feel that Chat Noir was still stiff and on edge. His kitty ears twitched, picking up on every noise. They finally flicked forward and stayed there, honing in on the next room. "There's someone in there."

"Well, of course there is," Ladybug teased him, squeezing his hand to show she meant no harm. "We're going to see the old Rat, remember?"

Chat Noir just nodded.

The elderly man snoozing in the next room awoke with a start as they all piled through the doorway. He blinked, adjusting to the view, and then his eyes slid over the French superheroes. They lingered for a moment longer on Paon and Lycaena.

He grinned as he sat up, warm and welcoming.

Master Fu stepped forward, greeting the other man- or so Marinette assumed, since she couldn't really understand what was being said.

"I bet the rat kwami liked that guy better," she heard Rena Rouge whisper to Paon. "He seems super-nice."

She was quickly shushed by Lycaena.

The conversation between Jade Turtle and the old Rat picked up. Jade was nodding along to whatever the other man was saying, occasionally interjecting something. The pinched look on the younger Rat's face slowly eased away as he listened to them talk, replaced by curiosity. He eased into the conversation as well, apparently asking questions about whatever was being said. As the chat went on, they all relaxed.

They weren't going to get attacked. In fact, maybe the Rats could even help them out. If they knew how to get to the temple, maybe the younger one could guide the group there to make things go faster. Maybe they could suggest another way back, something that would take less time. Maybe-

Maybe she shouldn't get ahead of herself just yet. Maybe the Rats hadn't ever actually located the temple. After all, Mr. and Mrs. Agreste had indicated that the temple's exact location was still lost to everyone, as far as they knew, and the Miraculous had still been there when they arrived. It had only been a year since they were last in Tibet. If the Rats hadn't found the temple before, after decades upon decades of trying, why would they manage it now? Maybe all this stop would accomplish would be to set them further behind schedule and to hopefully restock some of their supplies. There was no way to know, not yet.

They would have to hope for the best but be ready for the worst.

Jade Turtle was having a grand old time.

Sure, maybe this side trip would put a bit of a delay in their plans, and they might have to inquire about where to buy more supplies so that they would be sure that they would have enough for the rest of their journey and the return, but it was fabulous to talk to another old holder, one who had heard stories of the lost temple and everything that had gone on there. It turned out that several of the previous Rat's relatives- well, his ancestors and their relatives- had gone to the temple. A few had been lucky enough to receive a Miraculous over the years, and several had been killed in the attacks that had destroyed the temple and scattered the Guardians. The man had wanted to dedicate his life to recovering the lost Miraculous and restarting the temples, but had to largely set the goal aside to get a job and raise a family once he reached his 30s. After that, he had wanted to focus on simply finding the temples and recovering the lost Miraculous so that they could be used again.

(Privately, Jade Turtle thought that was just as well. The kwamis had never been thrilled about being confined to the temple, preferring instead to find Chosens in areas that actually needed their presence. He hadn't wanted to break the news that he wasn't here to restart the temple, but it seemed that the other man no longer considered that a goal.)

"It's good to see that the Peacock and Butterfly are back in safe hands," the old Rat told him. "I grew worried when I heard of the happenings in Paris."

"Well, at first we were quite excited," the younger Rat told Jade, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise. Excited? Hawkmoth's attacks had been clearly malicious from the start. Wayzz had been able to sense Hawkmoth's ill intentions, and even without a kwami to clue them in, it had only taken Paris a very short time to realize that the entity called Hawkmoth was evil.

"Excited?"

"Well, we were trying to figure out how to get in contact with other Miraculous holders," the old Rat corrected. "And then there's suddenly Ladybug and Chat Noir, completely obvious and visible. We were going to call on them and see if they knew of you, but we waited, because we knew that there was no way they could leave Paris, not while Hawkmoth was still loose."

Intrigued, Jade Turtle leaned forward. "Wait, why were you trying to get in contact with me? Why now?"

The two Rats exchanged a look. "It has to do with an incident just over a year ago," the older one started. "Tsomo, tell him about it. You were the one there, after all."

The younger Rat gave the older one an irritated look, probably for using his real name, before he turned back to Jade Turtle. "I was out looking for the Temple, trying to trace the records we did have, just like my uncle did before me. I don't get to go out often, since I have a job of my own to tend to, but when I can I went out. I had been getting closer to the Valley of the Kwamis, I could feel it, but around there the lingering magic that I was using as my guide was a bit haywire, and of course the valley can only be found through a single hidden entrance. I found many valleys, some more touched by magic than others, but not that one. And then that day, I felt a strong pulse of magic, something old springing up. I focused on that, using it as my guide to steer me. And after circling the area for several days in search of the entrance, I finally found the valley."

"But no one there?"

Tsomo shook his head. "No one. It took me two days to get in from where I was, so if there was someone else there before, they had taken off. The only thing out of place in the ruins was a glow from one of the temples. I figured out that it was the one that the Miraculous holders had slept in, the one with the traps to catch those who might bring harm to the holders. And the glow was from one of those very same traps. It didn't take long to figure out that someone had been there before me, and they had been caught by one of the old spells."

"He came to me at once," the old Rat said, picking up the story. "After marking his path, of course, so he could find the valley again. It didn't take long for me to realize that we would need all seven of the topmost level holders to rescue whoever had fallen ill of the trap. But of course, I had no idea where you might be, and the Butterfly and the Peacock were still missing. Still, I needed to find you to let you know so that there would be more heads to think about the problem. And then Hawkmoth showed up."

"So you knew where I was likely to be found, but there was no way we could leave Paris then," Jade Turtle finished. The old Rat nodded.

"And we figured that you had enough to worry about without news of a trapped soul that needed to be freed. It wasn't as though it was a very time-sensitive problem."

Jade Turtle shook his head. "It would have been another thing for me to work on while keeping an eye on the Hawkmoth problem. And it would have been a clue for us to figure out who Hawkmoth was."

Two sets of eyes snapped to him. "Wait, you mean it was Hawkmoth who was there- oh, of course he was!" Tsomo exclaimed. He swore abruptly. Jade Turtle startled, and he could see the rest of his group suddenly tense up, looking to him for guidance. "I should have known. That was how he got his Miraculous! And he came with someone else, but they were trapped. I bet I know who it was- they were poking around too close for my taste several times, but I only confronted them the once. I should have come to Paris as soon as I heard the news, then- I could have pointed him out! The attacks could have been stopped a whole lot sooner if I had been there- I mean, I didn't know his name, but I could have done a pretty good drawing, and then we could have investigated, and-"

"The young superheroes might not have been ready had they gone after him earlier than they did," Jade Turtle pointed out, realizing it as he said it. Yes, it would have been good to make some headway about who Hawkmoth was earlier, but things had turned out well. "This way, they had most of a year's worth of experience fighting. They were able to access some secondary abilities. And with Ladybug's Miraculous Cure, there was no lasting damage to the city. And think of it this way- now, we have two fresh superheroes experienced in fighting. That by itself is important."

"So it wouldn't have helped, then? Not even remotely?" Tsomo crossed his arms, looking doubtful. "I find that hard to believe."

Jade Turtle shook his head. "No, no, it still could have been useful! The way we discovered who Hawkmoth was- well, it a lucky accident, and it could have very easily not happened. We're lucky that Chat Noir's kwami has an insatiable appetite."

Both Rats glanced towards Chat Noir in confusion. Jade Turtle didn't miss the way Chat Noir drew back, wary of the attention.

"But we might have not been able to attack right away, since the young superheroes were still learning how to fight," Jade Turtle finished. "It may not have ended the attacks much sooner because of that. Experience is a difficult thing to imitate. But it ended well, so there's no need to be upset."

"The past is in the past," the old Rat agreed. "We must focus on the present and the future. In this case, I believe we can help most by assisting you and your group on the way to the temple. Tsomo can speed your journey up, I think. And you can spend a night or two to rest and recover and wash up before setting off again, which I'm sure you'll enjoy."

Jade Turtle chuckled, thinking of the disgruntled expressions on his charges' faces from whenever they had to wash in the rain. "I'm sure we can help with that. We've been using a solar shower sort of thing, but when we do it's at the end of a long day and there's not much time for the water to heat up. And if there's a downpour, we use that. A more traditional wash would be welcome."

"And a day's rest before you venture out again?"

Jade Turtle had to think about that one. While he was sure that Wayzz could use a break- his poor kwami wasn't accustomed to transforming for days on end, with breaks only at night, and on top of that he seemed to be tiring faster than expected- and the children could also use a rest from hiking, he was sure that they were all impatient to get to the temple and complete their trip. "Can I get back to you on that later? I should ask the rest of my group what they think."

"Of course."

"If you have a market of any sort nearby, I would be interested in seeing it before we go," Jade Turtle told them. "Or if any of your neighbors might be interested in selling us any fruit or vegetables. We've been out for about a week and a half now, and I'm sure we would welcome any fresh food. I know I should get some fresh veggies for my kwami, as he has been getting quite the workout on this trip."

"I might say, it is very impressive that you're doing the journey. I had to give up being the Rat when my bones got too old." The old Rat glanced over at Tsomo. "Of course, the Rat has to walk and run everywhere."

Jade Turtle chuckled. "Yes, having the shell is quite nice. I had to hike without it as myself at the start of our journey, since we were on hiking trails. I can't blame the locals for making the area into a day hike zone, but it was quite difficult to carry all of our supplies as myself."

"If we had gotten in contact with you before you left Paris, we would have told you to come from our town," Tsomo said immediately. "It's a shorter journey on foot, though it's very difficult for cars to navigate all of the way from the nearest city. I would offer to let you take that way back, but we don't have a car for you to borrow. Neither do any of our neighbors."

"Ah, we'll be fine," Jade Turtle assured him. He waved the GPS, with all of its carefully backed-up data. "We're planning on transforming on the way back and going straight-line distances cross-country, as fast as we possibly can. My shell can get quite speedy when I want it to. Trying to go out via your roads wouldn't speed things up for us at this point, but I appreciate the thought."

The old Rat nodded. "I suspected as much. We will simply have to content ourselves with letting you rest and speeding along your journey to the temple. Now, since it is getting late- I'm guessing that you might like some dinner?"

To Master Fu's surprise, his group was largely accepting towards the idea of a day's break to wash and restock a bit before continuing on their journey. They took his word that the Rats were trustworthy- well, except for Chat Noir and Ladybug, but given Chat Noir's family's history with the Rat, perhaps that was understandable.

"Could you maybe do a little fishing about the threats they made towards my parents before the rest of us detransform?" Chat Noir asked. He glanced over at the younger Rat, who was standing in the kitchen. "Just- if he's going to tag along, once we free my mom- I mean-"

"You want to make sure that both she and you will be safe," Master Fu finished. He smiled kindly at Chat Noir. "Of course. Perhaps I can bring it up at dinner. I'll make sure that he knows her true intentions for coming out, and that further harassment will not be tolerated."

Chat Noir nodded.

Master Fu smiled at the boy again before heading over to the kitchen to offer his services to get dinner made. They were an extra seven people, after all. Seven people and his kwami, at least. It was possible that a couple of the others might decide to detransform before dinner, but perhaps not likely.

"Your companions are still wary, I see," the elder Rat commented when Master Fu joined him. "They're all still transformed, even though they could use their kwamis to translate and talk to us if they wanted."

Ah-hah. Perfect opening, handed to him on a silver platter. "Yes, well, all they had known about the Rat before we met him today was based off of what we had read in Hawkmoth and his wife's journals. And what we read was based on one rather unfortunate run-in that they had, around perhaps two years ago?."

The elder Rat gave Tsomo a flat look. "Yes, I heard about that as well. And we had a discussion about at least hearing people out before threatening them."

Tsomo scowled. "Clearly my threats weren't good enough, if they didn't stop the two of them from coming back. Those chasing power cannot be trusted."

"They had been searching for the temple and the Miraculous, yes. But using it had not been their original goal." Their heads turned towards him, and Master Fu inclined his in return before starting to explain Mrs. Agreste's true intentions. Tsomo looked rather contrite at the explanation, and the Rat's eyes widened.

"I remember the girl," he said once Master Fu was done speaking. "A friend of one of my granddaughters. Kind, I remember. She struck me as someone who liked challenges. Stubborn. And her intentions were nice, if misplaced. Had I known what she had planned, I would have tried to dissuade her, or at least warn her of the booby traps that my kwami told me about."

"If they had to find the temple, if they had their minds so set on it, it would have been better for them to simply find it and then come to us at once instead of searching the ruins." Tsomo's expression had turned a bit stubborn again. "...but I suppose I could have listened, first. And if she was once a friend of the family, then I suppose she spoke Mandarin and we could have had a conversation. But how was I to know? It looked like outsiders coming in, trying to find the sacred ruins for their own gain. That isn't the first time that it's happened since the temple's fall. How they hear of the temple or how to find it, I have no idea."

The old Rat sighed. "Patience is a virtue. Rats are meant to sneak and spy and gather information before deciding on a path of action."

"They were getting too close. I didn't think it was smart to watch and see." Tsomo looked displeased as he added, "Though I suppose they would have gotten as lost as I did once the trail ended, giving me enough time to intercept them."

Master Fu simply nodded. It sounded quite like Tsomo would pose no further threat to the Agreste family, but he wanted to make sure. "Well, the girl- she's a woman now- she's the one we're looking to rescue from the temple."

His meaning was clear. Tsomo let out a long sigh. "No harm will come to her. I never intended to carry through with the threats, really. They were just supposed to scare them away. The most I would do would be give chase. Your Ladybug and Chat Noir are much scarier than I am, trust me. Even if they look friendlier, I've heard the stories of their fights, and gone into town to see the video. They're strong fighters, and I've never seen proper combat."

Fu made a mental note to tell that to Chat Noir. It would probably bring him some peace of mind.

Surprisingly enough, it didn't take long for the meal to come together. Tsomo and the Rat had decided to go for a vegetable-heavy meal, clearly correctly surmising that they hadn't had many fresh veggies on their hike. The noodle-filled soup smelled amazing, and the barley bread tasty. Master Fu was itching to sit down to enjoy the meal.

Across the kitchen, Wayzz had been settled with a pile of pea pods and chopped squash and was looking quite pleased as he munched on his own well-deserved feast. Fu knew that he had been pushing his old friend hard, perhaps too hard. A day's rest where Wayzz could be untransformed and munching on vegetables to his heart's content- Fu would have to compensate the Rats for the food they offered- would be much appreciated.

The kwamis were not used to being transformed all day, every day. If he could persuade the rest of the group to detransform and let their kwamis rest up and eat what they needed to fully recharge before the final part of their journey, that would be best of all involved.

After all, they didn't want to have to stop their journey on the way back and stay huddled in tents to hide their identities if the kwamis gave out from exhaustion and had to take a break to recharge.

With dinner on the table, they all sat down to eat. The elder Rat gestured for them all to serve up, assuring them that they could dig in as he had made plenty. Master Fu translated for him, and the teens dug in. As he waited for a bowel to be passed down to him, Fu decided to continue their conversation from earlier.

"So you told me that you met Mrs. Agreste years ago and told her about the temple," he started, encouraged by the old Rat's nod. "There is one more question I had- why do the instructions start from the town way back near the waterfall trails? Why not start from here?"

The old Rat laughed. "Oh, that's easy. My family originally lived there, and so that was the trail we had been familiar with, the one that our ancestors had taken. Most of our family still lives there. I chose to move out here, when I discovered that this village was closer to the temple ruins. It was quite a recent move, really- maybe twenty years ago?" He glanced at Tsomo, who shrugged. "After I met that girl, and after my wife passed. I had been planning to move for quite a while, though. The trip out took ages, where now it is only a couple days' journey to get there."

"That is convenient." Master Fu had to admire his dedication. He and the other six top-level Chosens could move across land quite quickly when they wanted to, but the lower-level Miraculous holders didn't have that same ability. They could move faster than normal humans when transformed, yes, but they could not move as fast as a speeding train like he could, or fly so quickly that all the world practically turned into a blur. Trying to hike all the way out without that would take quite a while.

He himself had only hiked that first day, when he had had no other choice. The rest of the way, he had flown on his shell.

"Did she know Tibetan, then?" Master Fu asked. "Or did her friend translate, or...?"

"I speak Mandarin and so did she," the old Rat told him, and Master Fu nodded. He had suspected as much. "So does Tsomo. Oh, I should have asked- does anyone else in you party speak Mandarin? We could speak that instead if it would allow more of the group to partake in the conversation."

"Two of them do," Master Fu admitted. "One better than the other. For the timing being, however, I would like to keep discussion about the temple in Tibetan. Some of the conversation might be, ah, upsetting to one of them in particular."

Tsomo nodded gravely as he accepted the bowl that had been passed to him. "That's understandable. The temple's history is long and glorious and filled with a great many good things and great accomplishments, but there are some rather upsetting events as well. In particular, its fall."

Master Fu winced as he accepted his bowl. Yes, that part was not the temple's shining moment, and he was partly- nay, largely responsible for setting in motion some of the events that brought about the final fall. That, to his knowledge, was the most upsetting event that the temple had involved in by far.

"It must have been rather impressive when it was all active," Tsomo added. "With all of the buildings standing, and the trainees in the courtyard, and the fields active... I try to imagine it every time that I visit."

"Have you visited the temples often since then?"

Tsomo nodded. "Quite often. I've been working to get all of the bodies that were there properly buried. There were only bones left, of course, and some scraps of clothes that had survived, but I didn't feel right leaving them out in the open for the crows to peck at. I've recovered some of the books that were there as well, but the burials have taken precedence."

Master Fu nodded, burying another wince in favor of trying to think about the situation objectively. Prioritizing the burials was perhaps not what he would have done- the scrolls and research was important, and after all the dead could not be saved- but he was glad that the children wouldn't be subjected to seeing the skeletons. They were too young to see it, too young to have to face the severity of the loss from so long ago. They were there to try to rescue Adrien's mom, not to see the bones littering the courtyard and be forced to think about all of the deaths that had happened years prior.

(Master Fu wondered if the younger trainees had made it out. The oldest ones had stayed to fight, he knew- they had had enough training to actually make a difference and to have a chance at surviving- but they had decided to evacuate the large groups of young children that made up the lowest classes of trainees. He had never found out if they had been successful in getting them out, and did he really want to know?

After all, what if they hadn't? What if they had all been struck down as they ran for their lives?)

"So that's what the fresh dirt is from," Tsomo finished. "You'll see it when you get there. I've cleared the courtyard area, and what I could see from a couple of the buildings. I found the old Butterfly and Peacock, and could label their graves. The others...well, I marked where the grave was, and all of the information that my kwami could sense from the bones."

"Age and sex, mostly," the old Rat elaborated. "If there was a distinctive enough magic mark on them, then what they were training to become. But it's hard to learn much from some bones that are over a hundred fifty years old."

Master Fu nodded, wondering if he and Wayzz would have been able to figure out anything more with the information they could get. After all, he had grown up at the temple. He had known all of the Miraculous users and quite a few of the magic users as well, while no one else in the world could say the same.

Still, maybe it was better for him not to delve too deeply into figuring out who had died in the attack that day. Everyone he would have known from his time there would have already passed by now anyway, either in the attack or naturally. It wasn't healthy to continue beating himself up over a mistake that he had made well over a hundred years ago. He would thank Tsomo for burying his fallen brethren and leave it at that.

"I thank you for your work," Master Fu told Tsomo. "I would not want my fallen colleagues to lay out in the sun forever. They deserved better than that."

Tsomo inclined his head in agreement, and a silence fell over their end of the table. The six other members of Fu's group fell quiet as well, eying the three of them warily.

"Let us move on to more pleasant topics of conversation," the old Rat proposed after a minute, breaking the suddenly uneasy silence. "So! Tell us about your journey so far. I'm very curious about how it has gone."

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #There's No Camembert in Tibet #still trying to catch up on the quilting backlog

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mst3kproject · 6 years

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517: Beginning of the End

When I think of the kind of movie that belonged on MST3K, Beginning of the End checks all the boxes: it’s got a silly premise, a lousy script, bad acting, laughable special effects, obvious stock footage all over the place, continuity errors galore… and of course, Bert I. Gordon, the garbage king of bug movies! I couldn’t possibly ask for more, whether I’m watching with Mike and the bots or all on my lonesome.

Somehow the town of Ludlow, deep in the mountains of Illinois (this movie takes place in an alternate universe), has been utterly destroyed overnight! Reporter Audrey Aimes takes up the story and it leads her to a lab where Dr. Ed Wainwright and Dr. Frank Johnson are using radiation to grow giant vegetables. Turns out, a swarm of locusts ate some of the super-crops, causing them to grow to enormous size, and now they’re on the move looking for prey! Will the government be forced to nuke Chicago in order to destroy them, or can Wainwright and Aimes find another way before it’s too late?

Wikipedia has far more information on how they worked with the insects in this movie than I ever wanted to know. Apparently Gordon bought a box of grasshoppers from Texas, after some poor bastard from the Department of Agriculture carefully went through all two hundred or so to make sure they were all males and therefore couldn’t breed. Then I guess somebody forgot to feed the bugs on their way to California, because they ate each other. The reason you never see more than a handful in any given shot, despite the characters talking about swarms of the things, is because those were the battle-scarred survivors.

The idea of growing giant food in order to end world hunger is something I’ve seen in a couple of different movies from this era, and it always makes me snicker a little. For one thing, it’s misguided: people don’t starve because there’s not enough food, but because either they can’t afford it, or it can’t get to them. For another, it’s monstrously impractical: what are you going to do with a tomato that looks like it should be sitting outside a Target? How will you transport it? What will you make with it? What happens to the leftovers?

My theory is that Wainwright said ‘end world hunger’ in order to secure funding – his actual motive is simply to grow bigger tomatoes, perhaps to show up some neighbor who took home a prize at the county fair every year and then gloated about it, no matter how hard the Wainwright family worked on their garden. I like this idea because it lets me picture Peter Graves bent over a Mad Scientist Kool-Aid Bar, muttering things like, “I’ll show you, Mr. Williams. I’ll show you.”

Leo G. Carroll, on the other hand, just really liked tarantulas and wanted one big enough to sleep at the foot of the bed.

Time to talk about the actual movie, though. It’s got a number of things in it that I really like. For one, there’s no drawing out of the ‘nobody believes in the giant grasshoppers’ thing. In a lot of movies, the soldiers sent to investigate the grain elevator would have found nothing at all. In The Beginning of the End, they encounter giant insects almost right away, saving us from a lot of pointless dawdling around. I can think of half a dozen movies that would have done well to follow this example! Their plan to destroy the giant bugs is pleasantly free of technobabble or bullshit like ‘mesonic atoms’, though I would dearly like to know how they actually captured that giant grasshopper and got it into the building. The script also gets around the problem of a monster that can easily be heard coming by establishing that victim Dr. Johnson is deaf. No Tiptoeing Tyrannosaur Syndrome here!

Furthermore, both the disabled Johnson and the woman-in-a-man’s-job Aimes are mostly treated with respect – even the military men standing in Aimes’ way remark on how she’s at the top of her field. Captain Parker invites her to hang around because he trusts her to make the army look good in a situation where they could easily be accused of shady dealing and coverup. Johnson and Wainwright have their own separate areas of expertise and each pays attention to what is appropriate for his, and Johnson’s disability never gets in the way of his job. The dialogue implies that Wainwright went out and learned sign language just so he could continue working with Johnson after his accident, which speaks eloquently to the depth of their bond without any clunky lines about how ‘he’s also my best friend’.

The mental image I described above, of Graves muttering over his revenge tomatoes, sounds pretty mad-sciencey, doesn’t it? That’s another kind of neat thing Beginning of the End has going on – the character of Ed Wainwright actually fits the part of mad scientist very well. He’s a man working in secret in the middle of nowhere with a disabled assistant. They Tamper in God’s Domain, creating things nature never intended, which escape their control and run off to break stuff. That could be a description of Victor Frankenstein, in his lonely castle making a monster with Igor the hunchback! Beginning of the End tones everything in the scenario down from the gothic to the everyday, the castle to a garden shed and so forth, but all the elements are still present, and nobody is more aware of this than Wainwright himself. When asked if he ‘bred’ the locusts, he replies, “in a sense, I did.”

The difference is in how Wainwright responds to the monsters he has created. Dr. Frankenstein is so horrified by what he has made that he disavows all responsibility for it. Wainwright, on the other hand, immediately steps up and takes responsibility. Throughout the rest of the film we see that he feels keenly responsible for the existence of the grasshoppers and for every single life they take – not only his friend and partner Dr. Johnson, but complete strangers as well. If the army is forced to nuke Chicago, he will consider this, too, his own fault. He stays in the city not only in the hope of finding a solution, but because he truly believes that if Chicago has to go then he deserves to go with it.

I like this idea, of a mad scientist realizing he’s a mad scientist and trying to deal with it. It’s got a Manhattan Project, I am become Death vibe to it that could have been really interesting and relevant to the 50’s Atomic Age zeitgeist. Sadly, I think it comes far more out of how Graves plays the character than how Fred Freiburger and Lester Gorn wrote him. The biggest problem is that none of the other characters recognize Wainwright’s self-destructive guilt for what it is. Aimes, who is supposed to have fallen in love with him, offers to stay in Chicago at his side until the bitter end – I think this is supposed to be a romantic ‘die-in-each-other’s-arms’ gesture, except that mutual suicide is not romantic and a far more caring and natural thing to do would be to find this man a therapist!

What Bert I. Gordon himself actually seems to have been trying to accomplish was adapting H. G. Well’s The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth. I suspect this was Gordon’s favourite book – he would use it for inspiration again in 1965’s Village of the Giants and 1976’s Food of the Gods. In the book, scientists create a ‘superfood’ that causes anything that consumes it to grow to six or seven times normal size – unfortunately, this effect is passed on to anything that eats the giant animals and plants, and so forth. Wells’ book was social satire, exploring the problems created by unchecked population growth in Victorian England. Gordon, however, is much more interested in the story's relatively minor motif of an infestation of giant pests, and in his favourite bit of movie magic, making small things look big.

Beginning of the End does note that the grasshoppers aren’t the first bug to get into the experimental farm, and this makes me wonder if he had a series of sequels planned. If so, it’s a pity he didn’t get to make them. I would give blood to see that giant snail movie.

As an attempt at a good movie, Beginning of the End tries some interesting things and even though it fails you can see enough of the outlines to have an idea what it was getting at. As a bad movie, it succeeds spectacularly! Despite what Dr. Forrester said about it picking up just before the end, it’s not badly-paced. The opening sequence with the destruction of Ludlow tries to create a sense of mystery, and once the clues are lined up it doesn’t waste time on people not believing in what the audience has already seen. There’s lots of grasshopper action and it’s all appealingly ridiculous. The one that wanders off the side of a building into empty space is a classic, but there’s also that ludicrous moment when the grasshopper appears to be spying on the woman who just got out of the shower. Nor can we forget poor Dr. Johnson trying to scream as the giant bugs close in on him!

Beginning of the End is everything I enjoy about Bert I. Gordon movies. It’s made with love, by people who are terribly proud of what they’ve created even if it really didn’t amount to much. I honestly don’t think Gordon cared whether his movies got good reviews just so long as they entertained people. Some filmmakers whose work as featured on MST3K, like Joe Don Baker or Sandy Frank, were bitter about it for years, but I suspect Gordon absolutely loved that the show brought his work to a bigger audience. I really need to get on with seeing more of his stuff for Episodes that Never Were, and I hope it features in Season 12, as well.

#mst3k #reviews #beginning of the end #tw: suicide #that guy from the university of minnesota #mister big #50s #giant arthropod hours

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Camp Cretaceous Reveals the Real Monsters of Jurassic World

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This article contains spoilers for Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous season 2 and the Jurassic franchise at large.

Our first introduction to Jurassic Park and its dinosaurs is on a dark and misty night, Men wait with guns as the crane crashes through the forest carrying a Velociraptor we are only allowed glimpses of. Tension hangs in the air. When she tries to escape, there are cries of “Shoot her! Shoot her!” The raptor attacks, and rest in peace Jophery, first victim of the monster.

If this scene tells us anything, it is that we are undoubtedly watching a monster movie. And Jurassic Park is. Throughout the first film in this now-lengthy franchise, characters are eaten and dismembered and terrorized as the result of the monsters running free and doing whatever they want with no regard for human safety. Yet, many years later, in the second season of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, it’s so easy to sympathize with the carnivorous Baryonyx pair when their pack mate is fatally shot by a big game hunter. And didn’t we all cry at the end of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom when Blue the Velociraptor makes the heartbreaking decision to leave her human friend?

Why wouldn’t the Baryonyx eat our favorite campers if given the chance? Isn’t Blue just as much a predatory monster as the raptors that stalked the kids in the kitchen? Yes and no. The franchise has evolved. Its dinosaurs are absolutely predators, just like the raptors and the tyrannosaur from the first movie, but none of them are monsters. Because the real monsters of the Jurassic series aren’t the dinosaurs. They’re the people.

The Lost World Sets the Change in Motion

The first Jurassic Park incident was triggered by Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight), a bumbling employee trying to steal dinosaur embryos for a rival company, but it’s The Lost World that gives us our first proper bad guys. The Lost World catches a lot of flack, but this 1997 sequel is where the filmmakers started teaching us to care about the dinosaurs.

The Lost World sees Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) struggling to balance his responsibilities as a father while also trying to rescue his girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) from Isla Sorna, a second island full of dinosaurs. Not that Sarah really wants rescuing; she’s perfectly content to risk her life trying to pet the young Stegosaurus she’s trying to photograph, even if Mama Stegosaurus doesn’t take too kindly to that kind of thing.

But they aren’t alone on the island. Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) and his big game hunting buddies intend to capture dinosaurs living in the wild on the abandoned island and transport them to John Hammond’s latest terrible idea: Jurassic Park San Diego. Other than being jerks, what makes them irredeemably villainous?

They hurt a baby Tyrannosaurus. A baby, you guys. That’s Cruella Deville level evil. It’s this, in a movie revolving entirely around Ian Malcolm’s family, that purposely parallels the dinosaurs with the humans. Yes, they are still dangerous, they still cause death and destruction, but everything they do after Ludlow takes the baby? It’s because he takes the baby. After that, we see their actions through a different lens. They aren’t just killing machines; they are parents, they have feelings, and we can sympathize with that. We can’t help but sympathize with that.

Jurassic Park III Continues the Trend

The third installment, 2001’s Jurassic Park III, reinforces the idea that the dinosaurs are more than instinct driven predators. The Velociraptors in this movie, like our heroes Paul (William H Macy) and Amanda Kirby (Téa Leoni), just want to find their offspring, and they will do whatever it takes to reunite their families.

For the human characters, this means scheming and scamming their way onto Isla Sorna with paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) in a search for their son, who has been missing for two months after Amanda Kirby’s boyfriend’s attempt at seeing the dinosaurs resulted in a parasailing accident. For the dinosaurs, it means stalking and setting traps to catch the human who stole their eggs with the intention of selling them to fund paleontological digs.

One of the more dramatic scenes in the movie comes when the raptors have surrounded the humans and are demanding the return of their eggs. The mother raptor goes to Amanda, sniffing and nudging the terrified woman for evidence of the eggs. She has identified a fellow female, and though the threat of violence is in the air, there is no indication that the raptors intend to hurt anyone so long as she gets her babies back.

In the original Jurassic Park, having a Velociraptor face on your face would be a death sentence, but here it could be interpreted as more of a terrifying interspecies bonding moment. But then, the original Jurassic Park was a monster movie.

Jurassic World and Camp Cretaceous Drive the Message Home

Every installment in the Jurassic Park franchise, from the first movie to the Netflix animated series Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, pits humans against dinosaurs in the ultimate example of man versus nature. Except… cloned dinosaurs are hardly natural, especially when they are the hybrids created in Jurassic World and its sequel, Fallen Kingdom. The Indominus rex and her spiritual successor, the Indoraptor, were created purely to sell tickets, to make money, and just to see if it was possible.

You know. Just like all the other dinosaurs in all the other movies.

Blue, the Velociraptor from Jurassic World, is clearly special. She’s smarter than any other dinosaur we’ve seen, and baby footage shown in Fallen Kingdom reveals that she has always had the capacity to feel compassion and concern for her human trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt). So it should be no surprise that she is one of the good guys during the final battle with the Indominus. When the Tyrannosaurus, the very same one who terrorized the characters in the first movie, joins the fight alongside Blue, however, that puts things into perspective. It’s not the dinosaurs that are the problem.

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Every death, every rampage, every teenage camper stranded on an island after a hybrid wreaked havoc on a park that never should have opened – they were all preventable because they were all caused by people. If John Hammond had spared a little more expense, if the hunters hadn’t injured the baby, if Amanda Kirby’s boyfriend hadn’t felt entitled to a glimpse at the dinosaurs, if Simon Masrani and Benjamin Lockwood had learned from Hammond’s mistakes, if anyone…anyone, had displayed a little more humility in the face of nature and been more preoccupied with whether they should instead of whether they could, none of this had to happen.

The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are often monstrous, but the real monsters are the people who created them.

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retro-friki · 7 years

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New Utena manga: recap + analysis

(Our favorite gal-pals are back! Although we don’t see much of them)

First things first: Yes, there’s a new Utena manga and the escalation is available thanks to the people from Ohtori.nu. You can check it out here: (X)

Second important thing: In this post I’ll be writing about the plot in general and trying to analyze what’s going on there, if you don’t like spoilers I recommend reading the manga first and then maybe skipping to the analysis part of this writing.

Without further ado let’s recap this surrealist little story I like to call:

“Touga and Saionji’s Weird Gay Adventure”

It’s been 20 years and now Touga and Saionji are rival art dealers. It seems like Touga never really grew past his playboy phase and Saionji keeps suffering for his unrequited love towards his childhood friend.

(Just watch how salty he is)

One day they receive a mysterious leter urging them to go to their old school in order to gain “The Revolution”. Turns out “The Revolution” is a painting made by their former chairman (Akio) who committed suicide 20 years ago, however, a great amount of art pieces supposedly belonging to Akio had been discovered recently and are already being confiscated for taxation purposes, so Touga and Saionji decide to sneak in Ohtori to get “The Revolution” before anyone else.

Both men make a truce and team up to look for the painting, the problem is that neither of them haven’t seen “The Revolution” before, they only know that it’s a portrait of the chairman’s younger sister (Anthy). While talking about that, the ghost of Akio appears and asks them to protect the painting because someone’s trying to take it away from him. In exchange he’ll give them a will stipulating that Touga and Saionji are the legal heirs of all his possessions (I don’t think a will signed by a ghost has any legal validation, but whatever). Before Akio can disclose the thief’s identity he gets impaled by a sword that comes out of nowhere.

And it’s awesome.

The rose in the sword’s hilt looks familiar to Touga, but before he can remember anything, he and Saionji are whisked away into a strange dream/memory. They are taken back to that fateful day of their childhood where both of them witnessed a catastrophe that took many lives. That same day, they found a little girl lying on a coffin who had lost her parents in that event (Utena). At first she tells them that life is unreliable, Touga agrees with her. However, she suddenly changes her mind and decides to keep up living and become a prince in order to rescue another girl who is also suffering.

(preciousbabyutena.jpg)

The dream/memory ends and the two men get back to Ohtori and realize that they had the same visions. Saionji looks at Touga’s phone and finds out that his friend is still buying paintings from a man that has been repeatedly proven to be a pedophile. Saionji being a decent human being calls out Touga on that, but Touga really doesn’t care about “morality” because beautiful art is eternal and therefore more important that human lives.

They start fighting with swords and get transported to the Dueling Arena, where they conclude that they have no choice but to keep fighting,ok...

Look, I get the impression that they want to put Touga like some kind of tragic antihero that was deeply affected by the catastrophe but I can’t really buy it. Specially considering that in this timeline Utena and Saionji went through the exact same thing and reached different conclusions.

Anyway, Touga’s being all cynic and gothic until Utena is prompted to literally descend from the skies to stop this nonsense. It’s then revealed that she was the one that called them back to Ohtori. She grants Touga the power to revolutionize the world under the form of her ring and sword. Why would she do that to Touga of all people? She probably thought he was the most noble man on Earth after listening that he’s not even sorry for the things he has done. Sure. (/sarcasm) (there’s actually an explanation, but more on that later).

Touga and Saionji get back to Ohtori and use Utena’s sword to open an entrance to Akio’s secret room where they finally find “The Revolution” (a nude painting of Anthy because the universe is unfair). Akio appears once again and tries to attack Touga but Saionji takes the hit. Touga asks Utena to grant him some of her princely power and manages to kill Akio with the sword.

I will never get tired of watching Akio getting stabbed repeatedly.

Once the danger is gone, the two men notice that the painting has changed and now it shows Utena and Anthy together. The painting vanishes and Touga explains that they may have indirectly helped Utena in her quest to rescue Anthy. As they walk away arm in arm, Touga and Saionji discover that maybe, the real treasure was the friendship they regained along the way (or maybe something more than friendship).

II Ok, So What’s Really Going On Here?

As happens with anything concerning to “Utena” this story also gives more questions than answers and it’s open to many interpretations. So far I’ve come to three different conclusions in order to answer all the questions raised by the story in a more or less satisfactory manner (for me, at least). These are the following:

1. This manga is an AU and it’s not related to the original anime

2. It’s all a quick reinterpretation of the events of the anime from Touga and Akio's P.O.V

3. The story is actually about how Touga got the power to revolutionize the world

Allow me to explain myself:

1. This manga is an AU

Seeing this manga as a story of its own that’s meant to be read without comparing it directly to the anime will help us avoid lots of frustrating questions like: Why is Akio a painter if that only happened in the movie (which can also be seen as an AU)? Why doesn’t Touga show any signs of the maturity that he seemed to be about to gain at the end of the anime? (in other words: Why is he still such a huge jerk?) Why is Utena a ghost, a prince or supernatural being now? Where’s everybody else? And most importantly: Since when Saionji’s been interested in art? Reading the story as an alternate universe where things went differently for the characters makes more sense. Besides there’s evidence that this might be the case.

Although it’s true that Touga and Saionji were Student Council members and everything implies that they also dueled on this continuity theirs and Utena’s backstory is completely different. Let’s remember that when the two boys met Utena for the first time in the anime, her parents had died in an accident, there wasn’t any catastrophe that killed lots of people. Besides, this manga seems to imply that Nanami died too, which might be the reason why this version of Touga is disillusioned with life.

2. The story is a quick reinterpretation of Utena’s story from Touga and Akio's P.O.V

In this manga we see Utena deciding to become a prince to save Anthy and ultimately achieving her goal. One might think that there was no need for Touga and Saionji to be there. In fact I don’t understand why did Utena need their help unless she couldn’t do anything once she became a prince and she needed to pass her powers to a human or maybe she was using them to distract Akio while she performed the theft of the century (could this be a case of “Utena’s Malice”?)

Another interpretation can be that nothing that Touga and Saionji saw that night was actually “real”, maybe Akio’s ghost is constantly reliving the events that led to him losing Anthy. The “Anthy” and “Utena” that Touga and Saionji encounter are merely shadows that remained in Ohtori while the real Utena and Anthy are actually free in the Real World.

After defeating Akio, Touga may have remembered what happened 20 years ago and he interpreted it as Utena becoming a prince and saving Anthy. Since he was closer to the events than Saionji he immediately understood what happened while Saionji could not. This interpretation can be applied wether you see this manga as an AU or as a sequel to the anime. However, this isn’t really a story about Utena, because this manga mainly focuses on Touga’s story.

3. Touga Kiryuu and the Power to Revolutionize the World

Touga is the main protagonist of this manga, there’s no doubt about it, therefore the story centers on his development (or lack of, depending of how you read it). In all iterations of “Utena” the Power to Revolutionize the World refers to a change, but this transformation is on a more intimate level in which the people that are benefited by the Revolution make a substantial change in the ways they have led their life.

Touga faces a disjunctive and has to chose between two options: becoming Akio’s heir or revolutionizing the world. Although the manga never shows Akio abusing his sister one can infer that this may be the case, specially since he treats her as an object and even Utena realized that Anthy was suffering. Akio is no different from the pedophile painter that Touga is financing. Becoming Akio’s heir meant that Touga would continue with his cynical attitude and more sooner than later he would also become a monster and lose his only friend. When Touga receives the Power to Revolutionize the World he gets the possibility to change, but he had to chose change by himself.

At the end, he decides to destroy Akio and he’s able to do this because he met someone that inspired him. Utena is someone that Touga feels identified with since she suffered like him and even came to the same conclusions about life. However, she changed in order to achieve a noble goal and that ultimately showed Touga that he could make a positive change in his life. So yeah, my interpretation is that after this story, Touga will finally become a better person and revolutionize the world.

Finally, I think the manga is mostly ok. This is a great Touga and Saionji story, however it does a disservice to Utena and Anthy’s arc and this is mainly because Anthy isn’t a character in this story. The problem here is that even if Utena was the only one that didn’t see Anthy as an object and manages to rescue her, Anthy doesn’t have any say in all this. It seems like the victims don’t really matter unless they serve as a motivation for other characters. On the other hand Anthy’s lack of involvement can be explained by concluding that this is Touga , Akio and Saionji’s POV and they never saw Anthy as a human being to begin with. The other explanation is that the author really didn’t care about Anthy…

Anyway, this was the 20th anniversary manga, let’s see what the next story has in store for us. If you have any corrections or alternative interpretations of this manga I’ll be happy to read them.

#revolutionary girl utena #shoujo kakumei utena #touga kiryuu #Kyouichi Saionji #utena manga #meta

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